9 ms·

I think the point being made is that Western agencies (5-eyes) would give Ukranian intelligence the button to push (indirect action) and not push it themselves

I think the point being made is that Western agencies (5-eyes) would give Ukranian intelligence the button to push (indirect action) and not push it themselves (direct action).

trhway 1y ago
By going to war with Ukraine Russia (very foolishly in my view) exposed itself to a number of possible "indirect actions" which weren't possible before as "direct actions". Like for example Ukrainian drone hitting one of the Russian strategic missile defense radars. Ukraine can potentially hit other strategic assets not that involved in the current war - say nuclear submarines for example.
- v5v3 1y ago
  Russia and all non-usa allies have been the winner. China etc have seen the strategies used in sanctions. They know how to limit their impact now. It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together. It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger. And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge. A disaster for the west, aside from their weapons companies/Ukrainian investments. And any NATO spend increases.
  - timeon 1y ago
    Hardly anyone is 'winner' here.
  - vardump 1y ago
    China has been a big winner, it can now get cheap energy and it gets to set Russia whatever conditions it pleases. Russia is now utterly dependent on China for many imports. Russia itself has been the biggest loser. Massive budget deficits, massive inflation. 1M of its smartest people have moved abroad. 1M Russian casualties in the war. Demographics and economy are disastrous. That and Russia is now a pariah state. No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
    - v5v3 1y ago
      Russians and foreigners travelling to Russia regularly blog live. Everyone there is doing fine. The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
      - sofixa 1y ago
        > Everyone there is doing fine. As long as they don't say anything critical against the regime. Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243). Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder. > The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands. Yes, Russia, the known beacon of journalistic freedom. How many journalists have been murdered by the regime? The fact that those Wikipedia sections / articles exist is very telling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attacks_on_journalists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attac... > media control there by western media brands. Anyone blindly lumping together all "western" media is not to be taken seriously. Especially when comparing with fucking Russia of all places. You can find plenty of disagreements in various "western" media (consider The Guardian vs Financial Times vs Le Figaro vs Le Monde vs NY Times vs Washington Post). Nobody dares contradict the official line in Russia, even calling the war a war, or they get tortured and murdered.
        ivan_gammel 1y ago
        > Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243) Chances for a civilian to die from war causes and gun violence combined in Russia are currently significantly lower than chances for American to die from gun violence. > Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder. Russia is currently recruiting contractors among conscripts and criminals. It’s not impossible to be sent to war illegally, but significant majority went there willingly (I have no idea why idiots arrested for drug possession choose to go to meat grinder, but they do it). Overall, in most places there it’s safe enough to think about something else than how not to be killed. People are really doing fine (when internet works - it’s been shitty recently for air defense reasons).
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    Yea, Russia has learned a lesson at a very high cost of human lives and materiel.
  - barrenko 1y ago
    If there was any real will left in EU people, Ukraine would wipe Russia off the map (at least the putinesque remnants), it will happen anyway, but we'd rather just expend vastly more money and vastly more humans and time in the process. Considering the current rate of inflation, switching the EU economies to war production would save so much money and lives, and bring down prices.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      War economies famously known for low inflation and wide availability of basic goods.
      - wltr 1y ago
        Keeping the war longer by a decade by not willing to hold your promise is vastly improves things, that’s for sure. Instead of showing the bully the force, be done with that pretty quickly and returning to your non-war economy pretty quickly. Ever considered that option, huh?
        Ray20 1y ago
        Russia has nuclear weapons and good means of delivering them all over the planet. That is a fact of reality that does not allow us to "be done with that pretty quickly".
        immibis 1y ago
        There is not much evidence that Russia currently has working nuclear weapons, but we'd rather not find out the hard way.
        wltr 1y ago
        Yeah, let these pesky Ukrainians to find out. This memorandum thing was a fake security promise anyway.
        1y ago
  - victorbjorklund 1y ago
    Russia has 1 million in casualties and has failed to capture Ukraine. You really think you can claim it was a "win" because now all their experienced soldiers are dead and their strategy has been reduced to "run towards the enemy and hopefully some of you won't be killed and thus we can capture another field"?
    - v5v3 1y ago
      Russia has a population of 144m. 1m is not a lot Edit: as per my comment below, casualties are not deaths. It's a wider definition.
      - trhway 1y ago
        >1m is not a lot. For anybody still questioning why the civilized word must stop Russia, i'd suggest to mediate a couple seconds over the parent comment (the commenter in the parent and in his other comments presents Russian position quite correctly)
        v5v3 1y ago
        It's 1m Casualties. Not deaths. The definition of which is quite wide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_(person) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_(person) >"A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, missing, capture or desertion."
      - Paul_S 1y ago
        That includes women, children and elderly. If you count fighting age men only, 1M becomes significant. If you count men actually available for draft, you're already at 10% loss.
      - oneshtein 1y ago
        Name your number.
      - 1y ago
  - b112 1y ago
    With more than 1.2M dead or out of service injured, Russia is spent. It's why North Korean troops had to be deployed. All they can effectivley do, until they grow new soldiers, is defense. Sure they can bomb from afar. But even of they take the Ukraine now, they have no force to hold it with.
    - v5v3 1y ago
      They were never going to achieve a full takeover of Ukraine though. Large mass size and the people wouldn't accept them.
      - pjc50 1y ago
        They came extremely close with the decpaitation attack. It worked back when the USSR invaded Czechslovakia. What they weren't expecting was effective resistance, so now it's no longer possible.
      - sofixa 1y ago
        That's why RIA had an article announcing the successful taking of Ukraine ready and published it by mistake, right: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20... Right? Right? Putin totally only planned a multi-year stalemate where he lost his best troops on a dash to capture Kyiv. Totally!
        trhway 1y ago
        Such familiar words there - "Putin took upon himself the historic responsibility to solve the Ukrainian question"
      - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
        I don't think they anticipated a Nazi/Imperial Japan style completely takeover I believe their plan was to capture Kyiv and install puppet government, and have the military collapse into factions and unable to coordinate effectively as a conventional force. Paramilitary groups would break out (such as the Azov units, etc.) Ukraine would then degrade into civil war, especially along an east-west line. But at least, it would be dysfunctional and unable to join EU or NATO. And they would be able to control enough to extract some value out of the country (e.g. natural resources). But they never really care about establishing peace and prosperity there.
  - sofixa 1y ago
    > And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge. Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. Oh, and at the cost of almost all trained troops and modern equipment. Not a very good deal. > It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger. Russia started the war, they are the ones who need to win it. The fact that they are stalled is a win for Ukraine, who are the ones trying to survive. The Russian economy is in shambles (cf. the Broken window fallacy), as are their army, navy and air force. It will take them decades to rearm back to the same level. Putin isn't stronger, really. He entered a quagmire of a war he cannot back out of (will appear weak) nor can he actually win in any way. He's stuck. > It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together. Are you sure you understand what BRICS is? Everyone using Russia's predicament to get cheap natural resources doesn't mean that e.g. Brazil or India are closer to Russia...
    - CapricornNoble 1y ago
      >Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. This war is the most recorded in human history. Can you share some videos of these Russian human wave attacks? Can you describe the objective delineating criteria between a normal attack by an infantry battalion or regiment, and a "human wave" attack? Regarding trenches and "cheap" Iranian drones.....should the Russians NOT practice basic principles of force protection/use of fortifications? Should they NOT leverage novel cost-effective munitions to wage war and instead use massively-expensive gold-plated equipment? How is that working out for the US and allies, who can't produce more than ~600 Patriot missiles per year at a cost of ~$4M per missile.....meanwhile Russia is throwing 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine every few days.... BTW, I recommend these vids about "human waves": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w
    - drysine 1y ago
      >cheap Iranian drones You say "cheap" like it's a bad thing.
  - simion314 1y ago
    Maybe if Ruzzia where the logic is always reversed Putin caused 1 NATO to get 2 new members, gg Putin 2 NATO to invest more in weapons, gg Putin 3 killed or wounded 1 million Russians while the population was already in decline and I would bet the birth rate is decreasing because of the war 4 economy is fucked, Gazprom reported first time ever no proffits, interests rates increased 5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands 6 Ruzzian weapon exports are fucked 7 Ruzzian army is a joke asx strength now, and the people are seen as low life orcs, killing, raping, torturing creatures 8 Kremlin is a joke, from 3 day operation to 3+ years, people flying from windows, politicians unable to admit a drone hit happened and claiming is debbry, 9 Putin pulled his secret weapons the donkeys after 3 years of keeping them hidden and failed to ado any significant progress 10 Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km 11 I can see this Zeds complaining about the West decadence while using iPHone, driving German cars and wearing expensive wtches (even Putin can't stand to put his ass on a Ruzzian car) How is Ruzzia stronger? The only way I could think a Zed would claim this is something like "Zed eats excrements daily for an year and after barely surviving this he claims he is stronger because someone in the West would die if he eat so much excrements, the Zed not realizing that the solution is to execute the tzar and stop eating excrements. Any Russian (not Ruzzian) can be honest and admit that this is not going according to the plan, Putin tried to repeat the Crimean invasion, his KGB friends told him that Ukrainians will receive the Zeds with flowers , the informations were wrong and Putin seems to be incapable to stop the disaster and keep his throne so he is willing to sacrifice the people and the empire just to keep is throne.
    - Muromec 1y ago
      >5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands That's one way to get nominated for Nobel peace prize.
    - CapricornNoble 1y ago
      > Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km Net Russian gains in June 2025 were 572 km^2.* In order for your statement to hold true, Russia would have suffered over half a million casualties in June alone. Where is your evidence to support such an assertion? * https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspnu/ru_pov_territory_change_statistics_for_june_2025/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspn...
  - fer 1y ago
    Russia has been a winner by basically no metric other than land and being a shit neighbor. And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there; it's literally a special grave digging operation. Soviet stockpiles of armor are basically depleted; now it's the buggy and moped meta. They've completely failed to support their supposed allies (i.e. Assad, Iran, Armenia). A good chunk of their strategic aviation fleet is gone. Car bombings of generals continue all over Russia and occupied territories, which brings the question, will it even stop if they "win"? They've finally been demoted from being an aircraft carrier operating nation. Their frozen assets are literally killing Russian soldiers. National wealth fund has ~20-30% of the prewar assets. Something similar in gold reserves. Interest rates are beyond effed, and recruits are largely joining for the money needed in the terrible economy caused by Putin himself. Who annexed 4 oblasts only to legally deploy the 18 year olds Putin promised not to deploy in Ukraine (as it's no longer Ukraine in Russian law). Non-military industrial output is on a steady decline. Price capping on bread. Fossil fuel output at minimums, and with low prices. So what is Russia winning at?
    - JSteph22 1y ago
      >And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there This is very easily verified as false. It's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously.
      - fer 1y ago
        Since the last big movements of the front that's absolutely been the case, though you're right it doesn't apply if you account for the early captures. Once you remove them (Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdyansk), that's very easily verifiable. Avdiivka had 30-32k pre-war population, estimated 40-47k Russian casualties. Bakhmut had 71k pre-war, Russia suffered an estimated 75k casualties from Wagner alone. Pokrovsk 61k pre-war, ongoing, 21k estimated casualties in January alone, and it's been ongoing for a year. And beyond cities, the daily casualty rates at most obtain tiny settlements of a few dozen pre-war inhabitants. In the worst case you have the North Kharkiv front with 10s of thousands of casualties and basically a stalemate. >It's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously. "One thing is debatable so everything is debatable", I didn't expect this level on HN.
  - throwawayffffas 1y ago
    I think your assessment is only partially correct. The Europeans are getting their act together and increasing their cooperation and defense spending. Sweden and Finland joined NATO, placed large defense orders and started integrating with the British. France has started talking about expanding its nuclear arsenal to cover the defense needs of the entire continent. While the Russian military has gained tremendous military experience, they have lost huge amounts of top tier kit. They are now essentially dependent on China. No one came to aid Iran during the Israeli air campaign, the Russians were too busy and the Chinese didn't care enough. The main winner has clearly been China, but the US and the EU have not really lost anything. If anything everyone that is not a party to the war is coming of a bit stronger.
  - pshirshov 1y ago
    Sure thing comerade, they even have a submarine missile cruiser.
timeon 1y ago
Sure, it is always omnipotent Western agencies... while some Western governments are halting support in critical moments - which has bigger impact on the war. I think Ukrainians (and Russians as well) aren't tech illiterate. They are (both) more than capable in this matter.
victorbjorklund 1y ago
Why would that be the case? Ukraine has a very large IT sector and they have a lot of good IT security specialists. To be honest, a lot of cybercriminals have been from Ukraine. So I don't see why it would be the case that Ukraine could not have done this by themselves. They have done previous attacks by themselves. I don't see why that would be the case. It would kind of be like saying, "Oh, if Russia does a cyberattack, it can't have been them acting alone. It must have been China that gave them the stuff to just press a button."
- johnisgood 1y ago
  That is not how I read the parent comment. I read it as US making Ukraine do what US wanted to do.
  - oneshtein 1y ago
    It's tough to say that Ukraine and US are allies right now. US refuses to hold security assurance, as promised, and forbids Ukraine to restore nuclear arsenal, as before the promise. Bullies behave is such way, not allies.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      It is irrelevant to my interpretation of the aforementioned parent comment. The point is that US made Ukraine do something that the US wanted to do but did not do because were it the US, then it would have had repercussions on US, so they made Ukraine do their dirty work.
      - pjc50 1y ago
        Curious use of "made" here when it's something that Ukraine would have very much wanted to do, this cyberattack.
        johnisgood 1y ago
        Both benefit'd, then.
libertine 1y ago
Not really, the point being made goes deeper. The Russian regime (and apparently a lot of Russians) deem Ukrainians as an inferior ethnic group - they call them "little Russians". Ukrainian authorship would mean: - Ukrainians are competent people with agency (which they are of course, for lots of reasons) - this plays into ethnophobia; - their government, military, etc, is competent, functional with agency - this plays into government legitimacy; - Overall, in a lot of instances, the Russian government is incompetent, even more incompetent than the guys their propaganda has been trying to paint as corrupt, incompetent people who are being manipulated. That's why a lot of time Russian propaganda trys to spin Ukrainian wins as "NATO/CIA/MI6/external agent did this". For example, they tried really hard to bend reality to remove the credit for the Ukrainian drone operation that destroyed a lot of bomber jets, saying it was planned and executed by CIA, MI6, Israel, etc [0]. This is what we're dealing with here: massive ethnophobia and propaganda. So in their propaganda, Ukraine can't be competent and stand on its merit, because that would mean they're not inferior people and that they have agency. You should always be wary of someone making these claims without any evidence. [0]https://uacrisis.org/en/rospropaganda-zaplutalas-v-pavutyni https://uacrisis.org/en/rospropaganda-zaplutalas-v-pavutyni
- cpursley 1y ago
  That’s not the meaning behind “Little Russia”, please considering doing a historical deep dive.
  - libertine 1y ago
    You don't need much of a historical deep dive to see how it's currently being used: > The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc. Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia".Today, many Ukrainians consider the term disparaging, indicative of Russian suppression of Ukrainian identity and language. It has continued to be used in Russian nationalist discourse, in which modern Ukrainians are presented as a single people in a united Russian nation. This has provoked new hostility toward and disapproval of the term by many Ukrainians. In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which was devoted to expounding these views. [0] Ethnical slurs, or any other slurs, change over time. If you go back in time 100+ years in any context, and you use a modern ethnic or racial slur, it will most likely empty of meaning. Just like a lot of slurs from the past have lost their meaning over the years. But the "historical meaning" is constantly being used by Russian propaganda, where they claim one needs to go back to the 1200's, and their interpretation of history, to try to make sense of the current genocide attempt in Ukraine. There's no logic behind that approach because current actions speak for themselves, including the context of recent history, and that's enough. You can get a pretty clear picture of this whole event starting in the 1990s. Unless you still see that slur being used by Russian nationalists as an endearing term to address their "brotherly nation" which they support being erased from the map. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia#Modern_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia#Modern_usage
libertine 1y ago
The point is trying to claim something without any evidence that supports it.

I think the point being made is that Western agencies (5-eyes) would give Ukranian intelligence the button to push (indirect action) and not push it themselves (direct action).

trhway 1y ago

By going to war with Ukraine Russia (very foolishly in my view) exposed itself to a number of possible "indirect actions" which weren't possible before as "direct actions". Like for example Ukrainian drone hitting one of the Russian strategic missile defense radars. Ukraine can potentially hit other strategic assets not that involved in the current war - say nuclear submarines for example.

v5v3 1y ago
Russia and all non-usa allies have been the winner. China etc have seen the strategies used in sanctions. They know how to limit their impact now. It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together. It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger. And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge. A disaster for the west, aside from their weapons companies/Ukrainian investments. And any NATO spend increases.
- timeon 1y ago
  Hardly anyone is 'winner' here.
- vardump 1y ago
  China has been a big winner, it can now get cheap energy and it gets to set Russia whatever conditions it pleases. Russia is now utterly dependent on China for many imports. Russia itself has been the biggest loser. Massive budget deficits, massive inflation. 1M of its smartest people have moved abroad. 1M Russian casualties in the war. Demographics and economy are disastrous. That and Russia is now a pariah state. No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    Russians and foreigners travelling to Russia regularly blog live. Everyone there is doing fine. The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
    - sofixa 1y ago
      > Everyone there is doing fine. As long as they don't say anything critical against the regime. Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243). Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder. > The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands. Yes, Russia, the known beacon of journalistic freedom. How many journalists have been murdered by the regime? The fact that those Wikipedia sections / articles exist is very telling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attacks_on_journalists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attac... > media control there by western media brands. Anyone blindly lumping together all "western" media is not to be taken seriously. Especially when comparing with fucking Russia of all places. You can find plenty of disagreements in various "western" media (consider The Guardian vs Financial Times vs Le Figaro vs Le Monde vs NY Times vs Washington Post). Nobody dares contradict the official line in Russia, even calling the war a war, or they get tortured and murdered.
      - ivan_gammel 1y ago
        > Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243) Chances for a civilian to die from war causes and gun violence combined in Russia are currently significantly lower than chances for American to die from gun violence. > Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder. Russia is currently recruiting contractors among conscripts and criminals. It’s not impossible to be sent to war illegally, but significant majority went there willingly (I have no idea why idiots arrested for drug possession choose to go to meat grinder, but they do it). Overall, in most places there it’s safe enough to think about something else than how not to be killed. People are really doing fine (when internet works - it’s been shitty recently for air defense reasons).
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  Yea, Russia has learned a lesson at a very high cost of human lives and materiel.
- barrenko 1y ago
  If there was any real will left in EU people, Ukraine would wipe Russia off the map (at least the putinesque remnants), it will happen anyway, but we'd rather just expend vastly more money and vastly more humans and time in the process. Considering the current rate of inflation, switching the EU economies to war production would save so much money and lives, and bring down prices.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    War economies famously known for low inflation and wide availability of basic goods.
    - wltr 1y ago
      Keeping the war longer by a decade by not willing to hold your promise is vastly improves things, that’s for sure. Instead of showing the bully the force, be done with that pretty quickly and returning to your non-war economy pretty quickly. Ever considered that option, huh?
      - Ray20 1y ago
        Russia has nuclear weapons and good means of delivering them all over the planet. That is a fact of reality that does not allow us to "be done with that pretty quickly".
        immibis 1y ago
        There is not much evidence that Russia currently has working nuclear weapons, but we'd rather not find out the hard way.
        wltr 1y ago
        Yeah, let these pesky Ukrainians to find out. This memorandum thing was a fake security promise anyway.
        1y ago
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  Russia has 1 million in casualties and has failed to capture Ukraine. You really think you can claim it was a "win" because now all their experienced soldiers are dead and their strategy has been reduced to "run towards the enemy and hopefully some of you won't be killed and thus we can capture another field"?
  - v5v3 1y ago
    Russia has a population of 144m. 1m is not a lot Edit: as per my comment below, casualties are not deaths. It's a wider definition.
    - trhway 1y ago
      >1m is not a lot. For anybody still questioning why the civilized word must stop Russia, i'd suggest to mediate a couple seconds over the parent comment (the commenter in the parent and in his other comments presents Russian position quite correctly)
      - v5v3 1y ago
        It's 1m Casualties. Not deaths. The definition of which is quite wide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_(person) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_(person) >"A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, missing, capture or desertion."
    - Paul_S 1y ago
      That includes women, children and elderly. If you count fighting age men only, 1M becomes significant. If you count men actually available for draft, you're already at 10% loss.
    - oneshtein 1y ago
      Name your number.
    - 1y ago
- b112 1y ago
  With more than 1.2M dead or out of service injured, Russia is spent. It's why North Korean troops had to be deployed. All they can effectivley do, until they grow new soldiers, is defense. Sure they can bomb from afar. But even of they take the Ukraine now, they have no force to hold it with.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    They were never going to achieve a full takeover of Ukraine though. Large mass size and the people wouldn't accept them.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      They came extremely close with the decpaitation attack. It worked back when the USSR invaded Czechslovakia. What they weren't expecting was effective resistance, so now it's no longer possible.
    - sofixa 1y ago
      That's why RIA had an article announcing the successful taking of Ukraine ready and published it by mistake, right: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20... Right? Right? Putin totally only planned a multi-year stalemate where he lost his best troops on a dash to capture Kyiv. Totally!
      - trhway 1y ago
        Such familiar words there - "Putin took upon himself the historic responsibility to solve the Ukrainian question"
    - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
      I don't think they anticipated a Nazi/Imperial Japan style completely takeover I believe their plan was to capture Kyiv and install puppet government, and have the military collapse into factions and unable to coordinate effectively as a conventional force. Paramilitary groups would break out (such as the Azov units, etc.) Ukraine would then degrade into civil war, especially along an east-west line. But at least, it would be dysfunctional and unable to join EU or NATO. And they would be able to control enough to extract some value out of the country (e.g. natural resources). But they never really care about establishing peace and prosperity there.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge. Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. Oh, and at the cost of almost all trained troops and modern equipment. Not a very good deal. > It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger. Russia started the war, they are the ones who need to win it. The fact that they are stalled is a win for Ukraine, who are the ones trying to survive. The Russian economy is in shambles (cf. the Broken window fallacy), as are their army, navy and air force. It will take them decades to rearm back to the same level. Putin isn't stronger, really. He entered a quagmire of a war he cannot back out of (will appear weak) nor can he actually win in any way. He's stuck. > It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together. Are you sure you understand what BRICS is? Everyone using Russia's predicament to get cheap natural resources doesn't mean that e.g. Brazil or India are closer to Russia...
  - CapricornNoble 1y ago
    >Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. This war is the most recorded in human history. Can you share some videos of these Russian human wave attacks? Can you describe the objective delineating criteria between a normal attack by an infantry battalion or regiment, and a "human wave" attack? Regarding trenches and "cheap" Iranian drones.....should the Russians NOT practice basic principles of force protection/use of fortifications? Should they NOT leverage novel cost-effective munitions to wage war and instead use massively-expensive gold-plated equipment? How is that working out for the US and allies, who can't produce more than ~600 Patriot missiles per year at a cost of ~$4M per missile.....meanwhile Russia is throwing 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine every few days.... BTW, I recommend these vids about "human waves": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w
  - drysine 1y ago
    >cheap Iranian drones You say "cheap" like it's a bad thing.
- simion314 1y ago
  Maybe if Ruzzia where the logic is always reversed Putin caused 1 NATO to get 2 new members, gg Putin 2 NATO to invest more in weapons, gg Putin 3 killed or wounded 1 million Russians while the population was already in decline and I would bet the birth rate is decreasing because of the war 4 economy is fucked, Gazprom reported first time ever no proffits, interests rates increased 5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands 6 Ruzzian weapon exports are fucked 7 Ruzzian army is a joke asx strength now, and the people are seen as low life orcs, killing, raping, torturing creatures 8 Kremlin is a joke, from 3 day operation to 3+ years, people flying from windows, politicians unable to admit a drone hit happened and claiming is debbry, 9 Putin pulled his secret weapons the donkeys after 3 years of keeping them hidden and failed to ado any significant progress 10 Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km 11 I can see this Zeds complaining about the West decadence while using iPHone, driving German cars and wearing expensive wtches (even Putin can't stand to put his ass on a Ruzzian car) How is Ruzzia stronger? The only way I could think a Zed would claim this is something like "Zed eats excrements daily for an year and after barely surviving this he claims he is stronger because someone in the West would die if he eat so much excrements, the Zed not realizing that the solution is to execute the tzar and stop eating excrements. Any Russian (not Ruzzian) can be honest and admit that this is not going according to the plan, Putin tried to repeat the Crimean invasion, his KGB friends told him that Ukrainians will receive the Zeds with flowers , the informations were wrong and Putin seems to be incapable to stop the disaster and keep his throne so he is willing to sacrifice the people and the empire just to keep is throne.
  - Muromec 1y ago
    >5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands That's one way to get nominated for Nobel peace prize.
  - CapricornNoble 1y ago
    > Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km Net Russian gains in June 2025 were 572 km^2.* In order for your statement to hold true, Russia would have suffered over half a million casualties in June alone. Where is your evidence to support such an assertion? * https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspnu/ru_pov_territory_change_statistics_for_june_2025/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspn...
- fer 1y ago
  Russia has been a winner by basically no metric other than land and being a shit neighbor. And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there; it's literally a special grave digging operation. Soviet stockpiles of armor are basically depleted; now it's the buggy and moped meta. They've completely failed to support their supposed allies (i.e. Assad, Iran, Armenia). A good chunk of their strategic aviation fleet is gone. Car bombings of generals continue all over Russia and occupied territories, which brings the question, will it even stop if they "win"? They've finally been demoted from being an aircraft carrier operating nation. Their frozen assets are literally killing Russian soldiers. National wealth fund has ~20-30% of the prewar assets. Something similar in gold reserves. Interest rates are beyond effed, and recruits are largely joining for the money needed in the terrible economy caused by Putin himself. Who annexed 4 oblasts only to legally deploy the 18 year olds Putin promised not to deploy in Ukraine (as it's no longer Ukraine in Russian law). Non-military industrial output is on a steady decline. Price capping on bread. Fossil fuel output at minimums, and with low prices. So what is Russia winning at?
  - JSteph22 1y ago
    >And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there This is very easily verified as false. It's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously.
    - fer 1y ago
      Since the last big movements of the front that's absolutely been the case, though you're right it doesn't apply if you account for the early captures. Once you remove them (Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdyansk), that's very easily verifiable. Avdiivka had 30-32k pre-war population, estimated 40-47k Russian casualties. Bakhmut had 71k pre-war, Russia suffered an estimated 75k casualties from Wagner alone. Pokrovsk 61k pre-war, ongoing, 21k estimated casualties in January alone, and it's been ongoing for a year. And beyond cities, the daily casualty rates at most obtain tiny settlements of a few dozen pre-war inhabitants. In the worst case you have the North Kharkiv front with 10s of thousands of casualties and basically a stalemate. >It's hard to take the rest of your comments seriously. "One thing is debatable so everything is debatable", I didn't expect this level on HN.
- throwawayffffas 1y ago
  I think your assessment is only partially correct. The Europeans are getting their act together and increasing their cooperation and defense spending. Sweden and Finland joined NATO, placed large defense orders and started integrating with the British. France has started talking about expanding its nuclear arsenal to cover the defense needs of the entire continent. While the Russian military has gained tremendous military experience, they have lost huge amounts of top tier kit. They are now essentially dependent on China. No one came to aid Iran during the Israeli air campaign, the Russians were too busy and the Chinese didn't care enough. The main winner has clearly been China, but the US and the EU have not really lost anything. If anything everyone that is not a party to the war is coming of a bit stronger.
- pshirshov 1y ago
  Sure thing comerade, they even have a submarine missile cruiser.

timeon 1y ago

Sure, it is always omnipotent Western agencies... while some Western governments are halting support in critical moments - which has bigger impact on the war. I think Ukrainians (and Russians as well) aren't tech illiterate. They are (both) more than capable in this matter.

victorbjorklund 1y ago

Why would that be the case? Ukraine has a very large IT sector and they have a lot of good IT security specialists. To be honest, a lot of cybercriminals have been from Ukraine. So I don't see why it would be the case that Ukraine could not have done this by themselves. They have done previous attacks by themselves. I don't see why that would be the case. It would kind of be like saying, "Oh, if Russia does a cyberattack, it can't have been them acting alone. It must have been China that gave them the stuff to just press a button."

johnisgood 1y ago
That is not how I read the parent comment. I read it as US making Ukraine do what US wanted to do.
- oneshtein 1y ago
  It's tough to say that Ukraine and US are allies right now. US refuses to hold security assurance, as promised, and forbids Ukraine to restore nuclear arsenal, as before the promise. Bullies behave is such way, not allies.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    It is irrelevant to my interpretation of the aforementioned parent comment. The point is that US made Ukraine do something that the US wanted to do but did not do because were it the US, then it would have had repercussions on US, so they made Ukraine do their dirty work.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      Curious use of "made" here when it's something that Ukraine would have very much wanted to do, this cyberattack.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        Both benefit'd, then.

libertine 1y ago

Not really, the point being made goes deeper. The Russian regime (and apparently a lot of Russians) deem Ukrainians as an inferior ethnic group - they call them "little Russians". Ukrainian authorship would mean: - Ukrainians are competent people with agency (which they are of course, for lots of reasons) - this plays into ethnophobia; - their government, military, etc, is competent, functional with agency - this plays into government legitimacy; - Overall, in a lot of instances, the Russian government is incompetent, even more incompetent than the guys their propaganda has been trying to paint as corrupt, incompetent people who are being manipulated. That's why a lot of time Russian propaganda trys to spin Ukrainian wins as "NATO/CIA/MI6/external agent did this". For example, they tried really hard to bend reality to remove the credit for the Ukrainian drone operation that destroyed a lot of bomber jets, saying it was planned and executed by CIA, MI6, Israel, etc [0]. This is what we're dealing with here: massive ethnophobia and propaganda. So in their propaganda, Ukraine can't be competent and stand on its merit, because that would mean they're not inferior people and that they have agency. You should always be wary of someone making these claims without any evidence. [0]https://uacrisis.org/en/rospropaganda-zaplutalas-v-pavutyni https://uacrisis.org/en/rospropaganda-zaplutalas-v-pavutyni

cpursley 1y ago
That’s not the meaning behind “Little Russia”, please considering doing a historical deep dive.
- libertine 1y ago
  You don't need much of a historical deep dive to see how it's currently being used: > The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc. Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia".Today, many Ukrainians consider the term disparaging, indicative of Russian suppression of Ukrainian identity and language. It has continued to be used in Russian nationalist discourse, in which modern Ukrainians are presented as a single people in a united Russian nation. This has provoked new hostility toward and disapproval of the term by many Ukrainians. In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which was devoted to expounding these views. [0] Ethnical slurs, or any other slurs, change over time. If you go back in time 100+ years in any context, and you use a modern ethnic or racial slur, it will most likely empty of meaning. Just like a lot of slurs from the past have lost their meaning over the years. But the "historical meaning" is constantly being used by Russian propaganda, where they claim one needs to go back to the 1200's, and their interpretation of history, to try to make sense of the current genocide attempt in Ukraine. There's no logic behind that approach because current actions speak for themselves, including the context of recent history, and that's enough. You can get a pretty clear picture of this whole event starting in the 1990s. Unless you still see that slur being used by Russian nationalists as an endearing term to address their "brotherly nation" which they support being erased from the map. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia#Modern_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia#Modern_usage

libertine 1y ago

The point is trying to claim something without any evidence that supports it.