The Ugly Truth about the Situation in Ukraine – Sorting Through the Propaganda
The news we hear from mainstream media since the war in Ukraine has all been messages of hope, news about Ukrainians who are standing tall, failures of the Russians to achieve their goals. Since Russian news is banned from U.S. news media, and that seems to be interpreted as ignoring anything that shows Russia is succeeding, a great many facts are lost and perspectives have been skewed.
But this is the bottom line.
It is a race against time. The U.S. and NATO need for Zelenskyy and Ukraine to hold on for at least a couple of months. If he doesn’t, if he surrenders, then not only is Russia emboldened to expand itself in other ways but China will be emboldened and will likely attack Taiwan, knowing that the U.S. and NATO will be ineffective in preventing it.
After a couple of months, the suffering imposed by U.S./NATO sanctions will start to severely affect the Russian people. Russia will become less stable, and Putin’s support will become tenuous. Conceivably, his reign could end – or Putin himself could become unstable and do rash things.
But the Ukrainian people will be subject to major suffering. The only way that Zelensky has to relieve this suffering right at moment is to acquiesce. It will lose some territory, but it will likely be safe from further invasion for the foreseeable future.
I don’t blame Ukraine for putting out propaganda to get sympathy and perhaps actual material support from the rest of the world.
But I’m not going to believe it 100%, much as I would like to.
I’m going to throw some other information at you, some of it originating from the other side. So don’t take that as gospel either.
The graphic below is from a Russian information source for March 11, this is the information that the people of Russia are seeing. Even without a translation, you can see that the Russians believe they have control over almost half of Ukraine and that the major cities of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Odessa and Kyiv are in deep trouble.
Compare it to the chart beneath it, we see Russian control from the Ukrainian point of view. They are kind of the same, except the territory controlled is much thinner.
Even if you figure that the truth is somewhere in between, Ukraine is in deep trouble.
The link below is a video from 5 days ago, from Youtube channel “Task & Purpose” by Chris Cappy. He is doing his best to sort out objectively what is going on there without regard to sides. This is worth a listen. He appears to be balanced and technical in his approach.
A couple of things of interest, he is noting that maintenance for the Russian equipment is starting to become a problem. For example, the tires of military transport vehicles appear to be dry rotted and are failing because of it. He notes that this is likely because some general responsible for maintaining tires, simply pocketed the money. If this becomes a systemic problem, this could severely limit the amount of time Putin has to finish this before spare parts run out.
He dismisses the idea that the 40 mile convoy stops frequently, he notes that this is normal, that the drivers are human and need sleep.
Cappy seems to feel that Putin has only a month or two to pull this off before the Russian people start to rebel. I’m sure Putin knows this too.
The next video is from Felix Rex with Michael De La Broc and Punching Bag Post contributor George Mcmillan.
We don’t necessarily agree with all of the opinions expressed on this, but Michael is on the ground in Kyiv and has access to more facts than anyone else we have access to.
The Russians are starting to consolidate, making their advance easier.
The Russians are deploying their drones, not sure why they were not used in the first week. The Russian Air Force is starting to increase its operations, making more of a tactical impact.
The Ukrainians seem to be defending Kharkiv, but the Russians have a huge advantage. Anticipate that Russia will have a continually increasing advantage.
The area in the south around Nicolev is crucial for the Russians, it would provide transit routes north for Russia and would essentially make Ukraine a landlocked country.
The chart below shows the movements of the Russian military, it is a bit hard to read, but you see how many lines of attack there are. This is a very complex situation
Russia must be defeated
AMEN!!!!
So you believe that Ukraine should just throw in the towel. Russia is showing that they have manpower. but that manpower
isn’t the Supermen Liberals have painted them tp be. That, and their outdated Soviet Union equipment. The only thing Russia
does is keep throwing more and more soldiers into the meat grinder, not caring about the casualties. Would you suggest
the same for Taiwan, or Japan if China decided to attack them or how about the Baltic states or Poland or even the U.S., just
pull a France and surrender.
I told you the tradeoffs, the question is whether Ukraine can last for the few months it takes before Putin has to be forced into something else. It is not their option to throw in the towel or not, eventually they will lose.
And Ukraine has the same Soviet equipment that Russian does, but less of it and less advanced. But they are not having as many problems right now because they don’t have to travel as far.
If Ukraine throws in the towel, China will attack Taiwan, and Biden will have no clue what to do about it. So yes, the same thing will happen.
If Trump were will still President this would not be happening.
“ if you green throws in the towel, then China will attack Taiwan.“ That’s one of the most unique pieces of logic I’ve ever seen. Or lack there of.
Remember, there is a difference between Ukraine in Taiwan. Taiwan has our chips.
“You green” = Ukraine. I hate autocorrect.
Clearly you don’t understand anything that is happening in the world. I’ve written about this many times, as has every commentator on both sides of the political fence.
Literally hundreds of major news articles have been written about how China is watching America’s reaction to Putin’s assault. Literally.
There is a really cool site that you can go to to research this. Its called Google. Go there now.
Sorry Joe, I wasn’t speaking to what China might do, I was trying to speak to what the US might do.
Taiwan is not Ukraine. Given the economic value of Taiwan to the US, and the electronics they provide to the US, our response there may be different.
However, your logic that if Ukraine loses, then China will attack Taiwan, it’s just stupid. China has already determined what it will do based on our actions, or lack of actions, in Ukraine. Whether Ukraine wins or loses, doesn’t matter so that’s a determination.
But, on this one, we will find out how brilliant you are. Because Ukraine will lose, therefore China must attack Taiwan, according to your logic. Don’t think you’re gonna be right on this one.
I firmly believe Putin didn’t decide to attack Ukraine until just a week or so beforehand. He was waiting to see what the west was going to put on the table and what the pitfalls might be.
Xi is in the same position. He won’t make a decision until he sees as much of the possible repercussion as possible. We know that he wants Taiwan very badly, not just for China but it seems to be personal as well. If he sees that our response in Ukraine is weak and that Putin gets away with taking territory and the sanctions go away, then Xi will likely move. But China is on a 50 year plan, so he doesn’t have to hurry if he doesn’t want to. If Putin’s plan works, then Xi has a road map.
What will the U.S. do? There are no strong allies like NATO in that area, Japan, South Korea probably will not want to be involved. My feeling is that a guy like Biden will do the same thing, implement sanctions and then back away from them. China’s strategy may be like Putin’s, take more than you really want and then negotiate back the rest.
Biden is being tested. It looks to me like he is failing badly.
I agree. That Putin did not make any decisions. Until he made the decision. I think that’s just how he thinks. He has a whole number of. Avenues of approach, throw some **** against the wall to see if it sticks, and then makes his choice.
I just don’t see China. Thinking that way. China is not in the same economic position as Russia. And even the terrain. Between China and Taiwan. Is much different. Then between Russia and Ukraine.
I just don’t see the immediate logic of your statement that if Ukraine falls, Taiwan will follow.
In short, Biden could have taken more aggressive actions all the way up to starting World War iii. He has chosen. instead, to galvanized NATO, create a worldwide set of sanctions, ostracize Russia from most of the entire world, cripple their economy, closed their stock market, drive their ruble into the ground . I am not sure that drawing red lines would have put us in a better place. When it comes to War between nuclear powers, and, as you call it, a madman, I think dialing down from the precipice of sending the nukes in is OK for now.
Putin moved his pieces on a chess table, gauging reactions at every phase. It was entirely possible that he would get most of he wanted without fighting. I predicted an invasion early knowing that Biden would act incompetently. With Trump as president, we would not have had this war.
You are not seeing the logic because you are not paying attention (again). We are not talking about China, we are talking about Xi and his ambitions.
Do you think Putin’s intelligence services didn’t game out the whole scenario ahead of time. The key to the whole strategy was Biden’s incompetence, his lack of leadership skills, his lack of ability to see the big picture and his inability to move quickly.
And Putin has been a step ahead. At the moment he is winning.
I just think China is smart enough to not equate Putin‘s war in Ukraine with what they want to do and what we will do in response in Taiwan. I just think that the US response in Taiwan stands every reason to be different than I response in Ukraine.
And as far as Pudein moving his pieces on the chessboard as some sort of strategic genius, I really don’t think he expected the current outcome. I don’t think he expected the world response. I don’t think he expected the Russian response. And I am sure he did not expect the number of body bags that are coming home to Russia. I also have to imagine that he didn’t expect his military to perform so poorly, his machines so broke down, and all the other thing our generals are just overjoyed and seeing and learning. I mean Russia is performing so poorly that I have to imagine that somewhere deep in the defense department there’s someone looking like he’s out of Dr. Strangelove saying “bomb them now, bomb them now, they’ll never be a better chance, they are not ready”. And that person may have a point. Given the performance of their equipment, one might think that the missiles may never lunch… At least not all of them.
Seriously though, sure, he will win, but he’s not winning the way he wanted to. He is not “on plan.“ And while he wins the battle, he has already lost the war. Hopefully, China will see that too. China is the number two economy in the world, but we are still number one. And when we stop doing business with them, they will no longer be number two. Perhaps ever again. They have, economically, a hell of a lot more risk than Putin ever did. We can pull out of China economically, and a heartbeat. If we pull out of China, it will be like we pulled their heart out. That has to come into their equation. Putin really doesn’t have that issue. He does not care about it personally, he has forced his people to get along with it in the past, and his economy is meager, profits mostly a small circuit, and is mostly based on one resource, oil. China’s economy is 1000 times more robust and connected to the world.
There’s some huge differences here that I think Xi will place above personal interest. And the US has a much more robust economic tie with Taiwan which will come into our response thinking as well.
The biggest hurt on Russia right now is for the USA to start producing oil and gas again, become the leader again ,so Russia will have no market for his.
Mission accomplished. We are the largest oil producer in the world.
Russia is number 2. Good luck catching.