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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I dont see any way Ukraine can win. There’s a lot of real information out there (military reports). I’m not going to dive into that and debate it. There are also many channels covering this topic mostly neutral:

Here’s one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KILAY2miQdI

Here’s another: https://m.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal

In short, for Russia to lose would be the end of Russia. They have to be seen as hitting their objectives (they’ve hit a few so far). Ukraine is massively out gunned, but has more manpower active. That said, I don’t see an outcome where Ukraine can regain any territory and will likely only lose more. That will further embolden Russia and will keep them from surrendering at the very least.

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You are right there are lots of real information out there.

You have picked a 1. random unpopular youtube channel (which might be good, I couldn't verify anything from it, as I couldn't find who ran it, if you know I am happy to be proved wrong) and 2. A disbarred barrister https://twitter.com/markgaleotti/status/927087181532991489?l.... There is much better information to pick than this! Any information will have a bias, and if they claim to be neutral I personally get suspicious of what that bias is.

Your assertion that you can't see anyway for Ukraine to win is based on "If Russia loses, it would be the end of Russia". Well, if Ukraine loses it will be the end of Ukraine, so I guess by your logic Russia can't win either? (TBF, everyone losing to some degree is right with war).

I won't get drawn into a discussion about how the war will go. People qualified to make a guess have been wrong and wont make prediction. Neither of us is qualified, so I will not be weighing in on this except to say that unexpected things happen all the time in conflict.

If you want a take from the former general in charge of US forces in Europe rather than randos and disbarred barristers, this stuff is more optimistic:

"Ukrainian forces could wipe out all of 'exhausted' Russian troops' territorial gains, retired US general says" https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-exhausted-russian-tr...

There was also an interesting take on the business before the war even started by Mikhail Khodarenok - ex-head ... of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Colonel https://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2022-02-03/3_1175_donbass.html In Russian but Google translate works well. It points out a lot of difficulties that seem to have come to pass including:

>It is also worth recalling that the mighty Stalinist NKVD and the multi-million Soviet army fought the nationalist underground in Western Ukraine for more than 10 years. And now there is an option that the whole of Ukraine can easily go into the partisans. In addition, these formations can easily begin to operate already on the territory of Russia.

which seems to be playing out just now with stuff blowing up in Crimea and Belarus.

> Your assertion that you can't see anyway for Ukraine to win is based on "If Russia loses, it would be the end of Russia". Well, if Ukraine loses it will be the end of Ukraine, so I guess by your logic Russia can't win either? (TBF, everyone losing to some degree is right with war).

One big difference here is that Russia has nuclear weapons and Ukraine does not.

Nuclear weapons are too taboo to use for anything other than existential crises. Losing the war would be incredibly destabilizing, but as long as Ukraine doesn't suddenly start advancing to Moscow, they won't be used.

Argumentation via hyperbole. The US lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan, so what.

There's zero indication that nuclear weapons are relevant.

80,000 casualties in 140 days is shocking and unsustainable for Russia.

If western accounts are correct, western military support is increasing the weapons imbalance, leading to greater Russian losses and fewer Ukrainian losses.

Finally, I'll point out that pundits have been calling doom for Ukraine from the start, and have all been wrong. So, the onus is on you at this point to "dive in and debate."

Or don't, and accept your downvotes lol. It's just social media.

Ukraine can't win in the sense of achieving an outright battlefield victory and ejecting the Russian invaders. But NATO and the EU can keep Ukraine from losing by continuing to support them, and maintaining sanctions on Russia. This will bog down the bulk of Russia's expeditionary military capacity in a quagmire, just like with Afghanistan in the 1980's.

Unfortunately this will have some bad effects for the rest of the world in terms of food supplies, but it's a price worth paying to eliminate Russia as an effective geopolitical player for years to come. Remember that it's not just about Ukraine. If the rest of the civilized world pressures Ukraine into ceding territory to Russia as part of a peace settlement then next year Russia will try to take a little slice of Poland, a little slice of Estonia, etc.

Yes! Putin didn't start the war because everything is peachy in Russia. It was a controversial measure to buy time, but it worked in 2014 with Crimea. Nothing has changed in Russia since then, so there's no reason to think it will stop with Ukraine. Even Putin himself says he wants more.

> would be the end of Russia

It's not such a far-fetched idea. Russia (the empire) has been falling apart since 1991 (possibly even 1917, but that's a scale that doesn't matter much for the outcome of this war).

Here's a curious moment from your linked video: https://youtu.be/KILAY2miQdI?t=373

> I believe -- and this is a personal belief here at MFAN [the channel name] -- that the United States is actively flying both F-22s and F-35s -- stealth aircraft -- over the combat area. And now, are they dropping ordnance on Russian targets? Difficult to say

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