Russians home for Christmas, says US Lt. General

[John Hill]

Says Russian defeat is inevitable ....

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I agree with every word.
This American General will tell you exactly the same thing
'https://twitter.com/MarkHertling
Ultimate Ukrainian victory has been inevitable from the end of March, as I was saying at the time elsewhere. It's the same principles that have controlled warfare since we were chucking rocks at each other. The Ukrainians have the courage/stickability, they have the quality advantage, and once the West started supporting them they had the logistics.
Many Russians will not be home for Xmas - Putin would rather have their bodies left on the battlefield for deniability to the Russian media.

[boing]

Russian defeat has trended towards inevitable for the last few weeks. The question is whether Putin will retire gracefully or arrange some last minute nastiness. I suspect his generals have the common sense to realize that ongoing repercussions of any silly actions are not worth the satisfaction but can Putin still wield enough power to get his way?

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[John Hill]

I do not believe there is anything inevitable about this.

[Pinky the pilot]

I do not believe there is anything inevitable about this.

But I'll bet that you'd like to be proved wrong in this instance, eh John?

[John Hill]

Inevitable means something is a certainty and unavoidable. I do not believe that a Ukrainian victory is a certainty and neither do I believe Russian victory is a certainty.

If you believe otherwise I would like you to tell us why.

[larsssnowpharter]

Barring a total collapse of the Russian ground forces, I do not see a victory for Ukraine before Christmas. I wish it were different.

At the moment, it seems that on the ground, Ukraine has seized a slight initiative. They are using their longer range artillery, rocket systems etc to degrade Russian logistics. At the moment Ukraine probably has a numerical advantage in soldiery but the Russians can build their forces up and prepare for a post winter offensive.

The current situation is a virtual stalemate like two exhausted heavyweight boxers leaning against each other in round 15.

[boing]

Lars

"Barring a total collapse of the Russian ground forces, I do not see a victory for Ukraine before Christmas." I think you are right.

We can say that both sides are lacking in man-power. The big difference, if things stay the same, is that Russia produces it's own weapons and stocks are being diminished faster than they can be replaced. On the other hand, unless anyone chickens, Ukraine has an almost unlimited amount of weaponry available.

How both sides adapt to the winter conditions will be interesting, I am tempted to say that the Ukraine knows the conditions in their own country better although do they have greater than normal disruption of their energy supplies. And of course, we have the wild cards like the power station. My theory is that it should be pointed out to the Russians that nuclear contamination of any NATO country as a result of a power station accident while it is under Russian control will trigger Article 5 of the NATO agreement. The Russians know that however long they remain in the power plant they are eventually going to be surrounded by Ukrainian forces and their presence there will be pointless.The choice then is to blow the place up, including their forces hidden there, or depart before they are forced into that situation. I am not sure that the scenario of asking Ivan to push the button that will blow he and his friends sky high is really credible.

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