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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

The Ukraine can do it, if it gets supplied with the weapons to do it. Even with the weapons they got so far, they managed to hurt the Russian military a lot - hence the mobilization. They got some very powerful weapons, but still limited in number and choice. Just delivering long-range ammunition for HIMARS in large numbers might be enough to break any Russian offensive as all supply and all fixed positions were easy targets.

The Ukraine needs a lot of that, more air defense (the German Gepards seem to work quite well) and of course some main battle tanks. There is no need for NATO troops to get directly involved as long as there is enough supply for the Ukraine (Poland still has a bunch of Mig 29 which could be immediately be used by the Ukraine).

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Calling Ukraine "The Ukraine" is a Russian tactic to make Ukraine seem less like a country and more like a region. Quoting from wikipedia:

> However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, [calling Ukraine "The Ukraine"] has become politicised and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use. US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty. The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is incorrect, both grammatically and politically.

He's probably not trying to marginalize Ukraine. Billions of people grew up with that language, and it just takes time to get used to the change.

The world used to call Argentina "The Argentine," but that changed, too. There are a number of similar examples in the last hundred years or so.

Not everything is overnight, and your own link states that the change in terminology is both political, and recent. And while Wikipedia states the change was 1991, it's not like every person on the planet got a memo in the mail the next day letting them know what the new, approved, language is. For millions, it's still newish information.

> Calling Ukraine "The Ukraine" is a Russian tactic...

This is just wrong. If you search for the word Ukraine on the Russian government site kremlin.ru (there is an English-language version), you will find that this word is used there without the article. I am sure you'll get the same results if you search RT's web site.

The article isn't the Russians' doing, especially given that there aren't any articles in most Slavic languages, including Russian. It is a historical happenstance of the English language, probably back from the time when the name Ukraine was perceived as meaning borderland. People using it probably do so because they learnt the word decades ago.

Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language.

"Ukraine" doesn't mean borderland, it's another Russian attitude with the aim to humiliate Ukrainian nation. You can also look at the map and see who is really a borderland of the civilized world.

> Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language.

This is an old and complicated argument. The Russians have their language. In that language, for several centuries, probably as long as the word Ukraine existed in it, it was governed by the preposition "на". There are other Russian toponyms that are governed by the same preposition — Cuba, Caucasus, Manhattan, "the West", Middle East, "the East", etc. It really is a question of whether the language should change because of a new political status of Ukraine (and therefore all its speakers should change their linguistic habits); or whether this word should continue to be among the exceptions that take the preposition "на".

The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.

It's not bizarre. It's one of the many factors that has led to the genocide of Ukrainians. Little things matter too.

Surely, the main factor is that Russians disrespect everyone else too, including their own less lucky compatriots. Russia must be destroyed as a culture if they can't learn to behave as civilized humans, if they want to be enslavers only. Though, it looks like Putin is already succeeding in this task.

> It really is a question of whether the language should change because of a new political status of Ukraine (and therefore all its speakers should change their linguistic habits); or whether this word should continue to be among the exceptions that take the preposition "на".

No. There is no need to change language. If in any given phrase one means Ukraine as a region, like Caucasus, then it is "на", if one means Ukraine as country then it is "в". With Ukraine becoming independent country most semantic contexts though from the "region context" have naturally become "country context".

The issue here is that Russians to intentionally demonstrate their unrecognition and disrespect to Ukraine use "на" (as in the "region context") when they really speak about Ukraine as a country and thus, by Russian language rules, must have used "в".

>The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.

It isn't annoyance. It is tens (actually looks more like early hundred) of thousands people dead for the reason that that factoid demonstrate - Russian refusal to recognize Ukrainian right to exist and to exist independent of Russia.

> If in any given phrase one means Ukraine as a region, like Caucasus, then it is "на", if one means Ukraine as country then it is "в".

There is no such semantic distinction between these two prepositions.

You speak of a human language as if it were a programming language disregarding its history (while even for programming languages, history is important, which is why javascript or php are in the state they are currently in). Just as no-one was thinking of the troubled American past when they were using the word "master" as a name of their default git branch or of the primary database, so no Russian (at least none that I am aware of) relies on the preposition "на" to tell them that something is or is not a country. They do, however, rely on their vocabulary of linguistic collocations, developed through the years of using the language, that tells them that the word "Ukraine" wants the preposition "на".

Well, i'm a native Russian speaker (left the country at the age of 28). I can only hope that you're too.

> Well, i'm a native Russian speaker

Were you bothered by the preposition "на"? Did you feel, back in secondary school, that saying "на Украине" somehow made it into something less than a country? Can you remember the time when it started bothering you?

This is plainly not true. As a Polish native speaker I could observe the same old custom of relating to Ukraine/Belarus/Lithuania as a territory by using similar preposition "na" in Polish.

And yes, we also use "na" for islands (Cuba, Manhattan) but it's still deprecating.

What happened when your country invaded Ukraine was that practically from Day 1, everyone in Poland switched to "w Ukrainie" - a preposition used normally for the country.

Edit: "w Ukrainie" instead of "w" to make it more clear what I mean

> This is plainly not true.

Which part isn't true?

There's an online corpus of the Russian language [0], whose entries of usage of the word Urkaine date back to the 17th century — you can easily see which preposition that word took throughout centuries. If you search through books on Russian grammar on Google Books, you will find examples specifically prescribing the preposition "на" throughout the 20th century.

The whole controversy about the preposition started somewhere around the year 2000, and quickly became political. For a disinterested Russian, who is not into politics, "на" would be a natural preposition to use with this word simply because he would have encountered it in classical literature, in the movies, or on TV. It was semantically charged only for those who were aware of the debate. The response from the linguists used to be that if Ukraine wants to use the preposition "в", it is free to do so for the Russian language spoken on its territory; but that it should have no say on how a language is used in another country.

I understand that in the recent years the usage of this preposition has become a political shibboleth; but I am not speaking about it from a political angle. My points are that the usage of this preposition, with this word, in Russian, is 1) historical, and 2) to those who aren't making a political statement, semantically neutral (i.e. it does not, in itself, connote derision, imperial ambitions, or anything of the kind). I have not made any claims about the Polish language (other than that, to my knowledge, it doesn't have articles).

[0] - https://ruscorpora.ru/

It's not the question of grammar but semantics.

Wrong grammar is when you put the verb before the subject in English. The grammar does not decide whether you say "on a call" or "in a call".

Wrong grammar would be if you used an incorrect case after the preposition, but the very choice of it involves the speaker and what semantics or meaning is meant by them.

Okay - you would find "NA" in the Russian corpus from the 17th century - but it is totally meaningless because East Ukraine was annexed in 17th century by Russia. I would have bet that this particular preposition was preferred.

I don't think any books on Russian grammar recommend a specific preposition - most likely you meant some stylistic compendium, but the style is something more subjective and even political in nature, isn't it?

In a nutshell, it's not a grammatical or historical thing, it's just shameless linguistical colonialism in its purest form.

FWIW, in German it's actually used with the definite article since.. forever I guess and maybe it's the same in other languages. I happen to know you don't use "the Ukraine" in English, but it's a hard habit to shake off - so this may not even be a case of any propaganda. (Just looked up the wikipedia article and there's also no mention of this being applicable, but you know, wikipedia...)

Besides not being a native speaker, I never thought about using an article with Ukraine. Now that you mention it, in German we always use an article with Ukraine, I never noticed it. But this is true for some other countries. Countries like USA, UK, Netherlands, Switzerland or Turkey are also always used with an article, I don't know what is the pattern behind it. All of those are certainly sovereign nations. So nothing was implied by using an article with Ukraine.

Nonsense! That’s just the name of the country in English.

FYI "The Ukraine" is a term pushed by Russian influences to make you think of it as a region (literally translated "the borderlands") as opposed to a sovereign state. The country is just called Ukraine.

Doesn't Ukraine have a lot more to lose over time? Russia can just flatten the terrain, or ultimately nuke. The reverse isn't possible.

And?

> Doesn't Ukraine have a lot more to lose over time?

It seems most Ukrainians agree that the worst would be to live under Russian dictatorship. Maybe they have experience in this area.

UA fights for its national identitiy - they ultimately have everything to lose.

There's no 'just' in flattening a terrain or nuking.

It seems that way to me.

I'm not sure what the western forces game plan is and i'm not sure they actually want to help Ukraine too much, I think they are walking the fine line of wanting to hurt Russia enough and see what happens, but they don't want to truly arm Ukraine because if Russia really loses, they might just nuke.

Your statements are not backed up with either public communication or a lack of monetary support. In fact, the US just sent over a billion more $ in military aid. Think again.

I understand, but I feel like they are monitoring the situation and making sure they walk that line clearly. Hence why they keep trickling the spending to them, they are monitoring and adjusting.

They could have done much more and given way more, why those are large numbers, it's still not on the scale truly needed to defeat Russia. They still hold back plenty.

They are obviously not going to say that directly in public, so public statements mean little.

I don’t think it’s so tricky to analyze: they’ve deliberately sent weapons that are effective for liberation of Ukrainian territory and not sent weapons appropriate for conquesting Russia with. Germany has its own inner soul struggle regarding moving from a pacifist stance to being able to support Ukraine, but the UK and US support hasn’t been ambiguous in any way I see it.

All of this could change in a second if Pooty either messes with Moldavia/Poland/Baltics or uses um unconventional weapons. I would not consider measured responses to be an open invitation for silliness

Nukes are a possibility, but MAD has stopped us all using them for many years so far.

As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets.

In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed. So long as they are passing this intel to the Ukraine, along with long-range weapons to act on it, any attempt at a Russian advance will be done without access to local command/supply posts.

Does MAD really protect Ukraine?

Edit: suppose the old man has properly lost it.

If Putin drops a tactical nuke on a Ukranian military position, will Nato really respond in kind? Seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

well, be damned

It might not be MAD but there is a really strong incentive from everyone else to maintain the nuclear taboo. Russia can expect NATO to get directly involved in the conventional war as well as losing their remaining allies if they do that. Whether that leads to further escalation or not is up to them.

Speculation city, and Biden did clarify precisely a response to that a few days ago. The strength of the response depends upon the relative strength of the attack. Putin has been threatening nuclear holocaust for months now, and he would be wise to not do foolish things from his petulant temper tendencies. Bullies can’t accept people standing up to them, but them typically show themselves to be spineless cowards when the medicine is returned in force. It’s kind of characteristic of how bullies are formed from weak oppressed victim types who go sour and decide inflicting pain downstream is some solution to what ails their souls.

Perhaps not, but China and India would definitely stop supporting Russia after that. China has a nuclear-equipped little madman of its own, so it needs to show what the consequences are for using nukes. India is also a nuclear country, bordered by another one, and can't imply Pakistan can just use nukes without consequence.

As if Pakistan is waiting for the global etiquette on the usage of nuclear weapons to change so they can nuke India!!

Both countries can’t use nukes because the other has them too. India has a fast growing economy at stake and Pakistan may be an economic disaster but Pakistani elites have huge assets in the west which can be frozen.

Usage of nukes in the Indian subcontinent has easily calculable first order effects.

In Ukraine it’s entirely different. It is ridiculous to suggest that the US will welcome the destruction of the entire human race if Putin even nukes civilian centres in Ukraine. They won’t. But there are second and third order consequences of such actions which are not in favour of Russia and certainly not in favour of Putin and his friends.

I think NATO would respond, but non-nuclear. There is no need to answer tactical nuclear weapons with a nuclear strike. There are tons of NATO air forces available to strike against Russian troops in Ukrainian territory. They would just obliterate any Russian troops there.

It was a small but interesting news item, that a few days before the invasion, some of the US stealth bombers were moved to Rammstein air force base. So at any time there would be the capability of a forceful answer. But this also shows how ridiculous the claims were, that the NATO would seek to attack Russia, as that is the thing the NATO has tried hard to avoid so far.

No it doesn’t. It seems Putin wants to conquer Ukraine and more importantly for the west to get over it. They certainly won’t if he nukes Kiev or does some such stupid shit.

The new Cold War will be sealed and it will be game over for his regime. He wants western apathy and social disorder to continue. And he wants a disaster zone in Ukraine as his personal entry point into Europe proper.

I am massively concerned that Trump may actually win next elections. I keep hearing that's not possible, Americans are not that stupid and so on. But he almost won second time and republicans across whole spectrum seem to love him despite his massive character flaws.

If that happens, US helps to Ukraine stops, period. I would expect Europe is left on its own and that may be a bad time for Ukraine and actually not only Ukraine.

I certainly hope all this is incorrect since I have family and life in Europe.

Bullshit. I’ve no interest or opinion on whether Trump is good for America or whatever. But he will go in harder against Russia. He was the one who warned the Germans about their increasing fuel dependency on the Russians in the first place.

> In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed.

Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.

No, Russia isn't waiting for a reason to invade the Baltic states. If they wanted, they could have come up with it any time. However, that would mean a war with NATO, which they couldn't possibly win. So far they are struggling badly with the few modern weapons delivered by the NATO to Ukraine.

They are obviously provoking NATO for some unclear reason. Well it is pretty clear - annex any land possible - by hook or by crook.

> Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.

How does Russia plan to take the Baltics when they cannot even take a city less them 300km from their border in 6 months?.

It's not clear that they can "flatten" significant areas, they've already shown signs of being constrained by supply of ammunition. Especially since the US satellites can point out where the ammunition dumps are and the Ukranians can blow them up.

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