Why Can’t the West Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?

theatlantic.com

5 points·ryan_j_naughton··7 comments

Saying that Ukraine is winning is like saying someone is winning a boxing match when their opponent has a machine gun that they haven't decided to use yet.

The opponent should not use the machine gun. It may even be unlikely that they'll use it. But the only reason the unarmed boxer is winning is because their opponent is not desperate enough.

I hope that Russia is never pushed to use its tactical nukes or any of its other astonishingly destructive weapons, but there's no reason right now to assume that they won't.

Well, the thing is that the audience has also machine guns and they have not just figured out yet what they will really do when the loosing boxer really takes his machine gun out.

Possibly because several of its cities are badly damaged, that the Russians have occupied Mariupol and are in the suburbs of Kyiv?

I think the reason is because Russia can still deploy tactical nukes and nobody is ready to bet on Putin's unwillingness to force Ukraine's hand in case the situation becomes unbearable for him.

It is just cowardice and fear mongering.

By this behavior you only encourage him to use this option.

If Ukraine ever makes the mistake of concentrating most of its forces in one place, tactical nukes might be useful.

Otherwise they just make a huge mess of contested ground. That tends to make things worse for the invader than for the defender.

(This assumes that Putin doesn't want an empty, desolate, ruined Ukraine as Russia's buffer against NATO, being prepared to give up Sevastopol for it. At this point Ukraine has a lot of industrial capacity and a lot of natural resources Russia could still exploit.)

>If Ukraine ever makes the mistake of concentrating most of its forces in one place

Kyiv

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