„Ich sage, was viele vielleicht denken, aber zögern, es auszusprechen: Die Ukraine verliert derzeit den Krieg, und der Trend ist negativ, wenn nicht drastische Maßnahmen ergriffen werden.“ [Thread, from a former Ukrainian officer]

>I’ll say what many might think but hesitate to voice: Ukraine is currently losing the war, and the trend is negative unless drastic measures are taken.

>Debates over what constitutes loss or victory can be had, and yes, Ukraine’s survival so far is a big win. But even if Russia halts advances and goes on the defensive, we lack the resources to reclaim territories to the 2022 borders, let alone the 1991 borders. This is due to many factors: delayed mobilization, insufficient aid, weak sanctions enforcement, a lack of political will in the West, poor military decisions, delayed aid due to de-escalation concerns, and the sheer reality of fighting a country with four times our population, with superior numbers in almost all domains and one of the largest military industries, supported by regimes like North Korea, which contribute more than some European countries with far larger GDPs.

>Manpower shortages are another issue, but that’s a separate discussion. Ukrainian leadership bears a good part of the responsibility for these problems. Still, if the West can’t supply the 14 brigades Zelensky requested, why discuss drafting hundreds of thousands more? We need to completely re-arm way more existing brigades. Who’s going to pay for them? Let’s be honest – there’s little enthusiasm in the U.S. or Europe to fund this.

>If Russia retains its occupied territories, it will undermine one of Europe’s core security principles: that borders cannot be redrawn by invading force. In 2014, Russia violated this order, leading to the 2022 invasion. This time, it’s not just Ukraine that will have failed – it’s Ukraine, the U.S., and Western Europe’s failure to defeat Russia.

>Some might cite Finland’s Winter War, as an example of what Ukraine should have done, but that war lasted three months and ended with Finland ceding territory, paying reparations in the form of machinery, and renting a port to the Soviets. Ukraine’s demographics today are also very different: the 18-25 age group is among the smallest, a reality across modern Europe.

>Unless Ukraine and the West create a serious plan to radically increase aid to support mobilization – where Ukraine commits to mobilizing more people on the condition that they are properly armed and trained, and the West provides robust air defense to intercept missiles as decisively as the U.S. does for Israel – Ukraine will lose the war of attrition. This will force unfavorable peace, and mass migration from Ukraine to other countries, setting a dangerous precedent, and making it look like the West lost to Russia in the eyes of the world, especially among the enemies of the West

Is it Tataragami? If so, he’s been saying this stuff for 2 years now. He’s a famous storm crow. Not everything he says is wrong, but he’s very focused on saying everything is shit. He was particularly negative on the whole Kursk thing, but I would argue it’s pulled Russia away from the Donbas. Tataragami is famous for predicting the loss of Pokrovsk by September as well.

The US has to get off its ass and send another 500 Bradley’s rather than hummers and Ukraine is going to need to inch conscription down from 25 (but not to 18) . And Russia finally is running out of a lot of categories of equipment, though here always seems to be another scrap heap of APCs and WWII artillery.

Almost like we are in a war of attrition. Wars such as these aren’t won with territory, but the will and capacity to keep fighting. This is why Russia likes to occasionally ‘sue for peace’ on rough contact lines despite the casus belli for the war being erasing Ukraine as a whole.

Now, we can argue if Ukraine will lose the will and capacity in the war first, and we can definitely agree that the US in particular needs to enable Ukraine to win rather than just not lose, but focusing on territory at this point is counter productive in the highest.

I hate to say this but even with a Harris win and a more expansive approach to the US militarily assisting Ukraine, eventually other countries are going to have to enter the fray against Russia.

If Ukraine falls, it will only be a matter of time before Russia is on the march again in Poland, Lithuania etc. Everyone knows this. So the only answer is regime change in Russia and that means other countries getting directly militarily involved.

When this started in 2022 I told a friend of mine that WWIII just started, its just a question of whether everyone accepts it. NATO has been in denial about this and has tried very hard to avoid it. Meanwhile so many innocents have died and so many resources are gone as they hesitate. This just can’t continue on, something’s gotta give, and that something is coming whether NATO prefers it or not. Save Ukraine. Save Europe. Destroy the Putin regime. You can’t have any of these without the others.

About a week ago or two, Ukrainian air defense suddenly got much worse, dropping from 90-100% success rate to less than 50%. I finally saw it mentioned in an article last night but it was in half sleep and now I don’t remember the reason, duh. In today’s report they shot down 51 of 136 drones. If the other 85 reached their goal and exploded, that would be absolutely fucked up. At the same time I read reports of drones “returning to Russia” or getting “lost” and I don’t read about 85 explosions. Still wonder what’s up there, doesn’t sound good though.

It’s possible they previously counted “missing” drones as destroyed and now changed their counting method… no clue. >_>

Ukraine is currently losing territory, personnel and equipment. Russia is also losing personnel and equipment.

What’s important is, who can keep the losses up the longest.

So far Russia has had a distinct advantage in the amount of manpower and equipment they can field.

And while they seemingly keep finding more people, they are feeling the impact of equipment losses.

Anders Puch Nielsen made a video, where he explains how he doesn’t believe Russia can produce enough new equipment.
The important part there is the word “new”. Russia had relied on old stocks, and those are running dry.

My point here is, that while Ukraine is currently losing, so is Russia, and I certainly wouldn’t count Ukraine out, as the western arms industry is slowly increasing production.