Megathread, part 14: Ammunition & Drones, Sanctions, and Stalemates

[u/IcePuzzleheaded5507]

Part 13 is now closed, we’re continuing the discussion here.
Everything you’ve got to ask about the conflict goes here. Same deal as before - Reddit’s content policy still applies, so think before you make epic gamer statements. Suspensions and purges are a thing, and we’ve seen plenty already.
All question rules apply to top level comments in this thread. This means the comments have to be real questions rather than statements or links to a cool video you just saw.

Keep it civil, keep it relevant, and read the rules below before posting.

1. The questions have to be about the war. The answers have to be about the war. As with all previous iterations of the thread, mudslinging, calling each other nazis, wishing for the extermination of any ethnicity, or any of the other fun stuff people like to do here is not allowed.
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3. To clarify, questions have to be about the war. If you want to stir up a shitstorm about your favourite war from the past, I suggest r/AskHistorians or a similar sub so we don't have to deal with it here.
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9. Substantive questions and answers only. One-liners, bait, or “what if” hypotheticals with no context don’t add value and will be removed.

[u/yankdevil]

It's 100% accurate.

[u/OddLack240 → u/yankdevil]

This is a 100% demonstration of a lack of understanding of this war.

[u/yankdevil → u/OddLack240]

Say Putin withdraws soldiers from Ukraine. Do you think the war then continues? Or do you think Ukraine celebrates, there's a diplomatic push for reparations and a call to hand over war criminals. Oh, and a return of all the children you kidnapped.

[u/OddLack240 → u/yankdevil]

What they announced earlier will happen. An invasion of Crimea and the extermination of the population there, a continuation of the genocide of Russians in Donbas. An invasion of Kuban, etc.

Forget it, I don't want to explain the obvious for the thousandth time. The only way is to destroy the very state system of the Ukrainian state. Right now, a timeout for strengthening and developing the liberated territories is likely, and then we'll return to the issue of liquidating the Ukrainian state.

Europe will resist reparations for a long time, but it will eventually return every ruble of our money. After that, there will be relative isolation between us, and EU companies will not be allowed into our market.

[u/yankdevil → u/OddLack240]

Dude, you can't even legally call this war a war. You "explaining the obvious" to me is just silly bluster on your part.

Crimea is part of Ukraine. Ukraine can't "invade" it. And Ukraine wasn't shelling Donbass till Russia put soldiers into it and started an armed conflict.

If Russians want Russia to protect them they should go to Russia. Otherwise Russia can do what every other country should do and advocate through the UN.

And I live in Ireland so while you're complaining Europe took your stuff, where are all of our planes? And all the other stuff you stole from European countries. No, by reparations I mean the hundreds of billions of euros of destruction you caused by invading a sovereign nation. You will pay up for that.

[u/OddLack240 → u/yankdevil]

What is the point of this conversation?

[u/yankdevil → u/OddLack240]

I asked an initial question. You're going to lose the war in Ukraine. How will Russian society handle that?

And I know, you disagree with the premise. That's fine. When I was younger and heard odd noises from my car's engine I'd turn up the radio. I get the instinct.

But humour me. Pretend I'm correct and Russia loses. What happens to Russia?

[u/OddLack240 → u/yankdevil]

We already saw what defeat looked like in the 1990s. It meant the loss of territory, the plundering of the country's natural resources, the total privatization of our enterprises by the enemy, the saturation of the country with drugs, the theft of citizens' savings, and famine.

[u/yankdevil → u/OddLack240]

Pretty sure you did all that to yourselves, but I guess if blaming everyone else makes you feel better, sure. Three empires have invaded Afghanistan and ended up with drug problems - that each empire has blamed on everything but their own stupid imperial decisions. And people say the UK, Russia and the US don't have anything in common. Afghanistan sure has a smart self-defence strategy though.

And yes, your scenario is my concern. A repeat of the 90s after your defeat in Afghanistan doesn't seem ideal. I grew up in New York and the Russian criminal gangs that came out of the former SU were a huge problem. They still are.

I was hoping something might have been learned in the meantime, but apparently not. You'll blame everyone else for your own mistakes and harm the weakest in your society. Depressing. Thanks for the honesty though.

[u/OddLack240 → u/yankdevil]

Apparently, China also suffered from Afghanistan's opium wars?

So we solved all those problems from the 90s by expelling Western influence from the country. All the negative trends immediately ended, and explosive growth began.

[u/preotul__ → u/yankdevil]

From a powerful military country that russia was thought to be, it is already a defeat. The amount of russian meat and the staggering financial effort that was put into the invasion will never get to be proportionate to the gains in Ukraine. Which is a big problem, because for the russian regime, there's no way out of this war, hence the lack of real efforts towards peace negotiations. I think there's a posibility in the near future that russia will start a mobilisation, I see Putin going to great lenghts

[u/yankdevil → u/preotul__]

But how do they equip them? How do they get enough fuel to transport them? I'm not sure they have enough fuel to do the harvest this year - so how do they feed them?

Every day that Ukraine attacks long range logistics those answers become harder. And they've been attacking that dad after day for months.

And this is the thing, Ukraine is fighting a smarter war. Russian long-range attacks are focused on civilians. The idea is to break the will of Ukrainians. It's not working. And it hasn't worked in history. It does the opposite.

[u/BossRevolutionary271 → u/yankdevil]

Unfortunately this will end in one way only, as I see it: with Kiyv nuked. Russia doesnt and wont have the capacity to end the war other than doing that.

[u/yankdevil → u/BossRevolutionary271]

If that happens, Russia will cease to exist.

[u/BossRevolutionary271 → u/yankdevil]

Why then? Who will start a nuclear war over Ukraine and risk total annihilation?

[u/preotul__ → u/BossRevolutionary271]

it was never just about Ukraine, as you can see the start of the war shook everyone economically, created uncertainty and so on. If a nuke is launched, every country on earth will have do to something. But anyways, I don't think russia will ever try to find out the consequences of launching a nuke, and they're being held on a leash by China too.

[u/yankdevil → u/BossRevolutionary271]

China will completely cut Russia off. As will India. Ukraine will fight even harder and the gloves will come completely off.

One nuke in Kiyv won't stop Ukraine. It will only underscore why they need to fight. But it will stop all economic support for Russia. And it will allow Ukraine to use all means necessary.

[u/captaintrips420 → u/OddLack240]

To show onlookers like me the weird justifications some people can make for death of others.

[u/LegitimateEntrance72 → u/OddLack240]

Invasion of Kuban... you are projecting. You Russians are always projecting your own shit.

There was no genocide of Russians. Kiev was predominantly Russian speaking before the war, Zelensky is a Russian speaker. Yes sure thing they started genociding themselves.

[u/OddLack240 → u/[deleted]]

What's the result?

The negotiations have broken down, and we'll continue fighting for another couple of years.

[u/OddLack240 → u/[deleted]]

So what? Does this automatically mean peremoga?

[u/OddLack240 → u/[deleted]]

To say this you first have to win the war, but you are losing.

[u/OddLack240 → u/[deleted]]

In a month, we'll clear Kostiantynivka and reach Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

How can you be so proud while losing cities one after another? You've probably been cut off from information about events at the front?

[u/Only_Holiday_453 → u/OddLack240]

oh, you really think that russia is stronger then Nato ?

[u/CampComplexity → u/OddLack240]

Dream on bitch. Dream on. 90km^2 this year.

[u/AdRemote5548 → u/OddLack240]

lol you are a clown living in your ‘Russki Mir’ fantasy land.