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- The vast majority of the US population (regardless of political affiliation) approves the government's support of Ukraine, thanks in part due to possibly the greatest wartime PR campaign in history

- Defense contractors are making a lot of money, again with full public approval

- USA is gaining a lot of influence in Europe through its actions

- Russia is being taken down a peg

It's really a very easy and obvious win for the US establishment from all sides

It's a clear and obvious win for the US, US goals in the area, and general US goodwill, after we lost so much. And yet still, there is a significant portion of the Republican party that is strictly and vocally against it.

> thanks in part due to possibly the greatest wartime PR campaign in history

It's thanks to Russia attacking another country and ruthlessly killing, raping, and torturing other people.

Russia also has state-backed PR but it doesn't work that well because it is them who invaded another country.

Agreed, but it'd be a mistake to dismiss the value of good PR for Ukraine. Zelensky's "I need ammo, not a ride" and Kyiv residents making Molotov cocktails sort of stuff in the early days was critical to generating sympathy and support, and them holding the high moral ground in things like treatment of POWs continues to be important.

> It's thanks to Russia attacking another country and ruthlessly killing, raping, and torturing other people.

there are many ongoing conflicts in the world, Syria and Libya for example. They don't receive that much attention.

Syria received almost exclusive coverage when the war broke out and refugees started arriving to Europe. Everybody was sympathetic and thinking what they could do.* But the situation was very different from the one in Ukraine, more like an uprising against a dictator and not a full-scale invasion.

* Years passed, and it's still not clear to what the West could do (or have done).

When chemical weapons were used the US came very close to invading.

> more like an uprising against a dictator and not a full-scale invasion.

that's depends how you define full-scale invasion. Russia carries bombing campaign in Syria for 7 years already, with many iranian/turkish/hesbola troops on the ground.

You don't seem to realize the scale of a full blown war.

ruZZia throws at Ukraine everything it has except weapons of mass destruction i.e. nuclear, chemical and bio.

The number of ballistic and cruise missiles, including capable of carrying nuclear weapons, fighter jets, tanks, artillery (rocket and otherwise) in use is astounding.

This is a full scale war in invading other country not a "conflict".

> ruZZia throws at Ukraine everything it has except weapons of mass destruction i.e. nuclear, chemical and bio.

so far both Libya and Syria received much more damage than Ukraine, where conflict is mostly localized on 20% of territory.

Unfortunately the so-called "civil" wars are often much bloodier than external invasions. And in cases like Syria there is even no hope of resolving the conflict anytime soon. The only good thing is that the intensity of the war dwindled somehow.

I don't know what happened in the US, but both the Libyan and Syrian conflicts got a lot of press coverage in Italian media.

Don't underestimate the significance of Ukrainians being white Europeans. I'm not saying it's right, but being what they are helps Ukrainians capture the attention of the Western world a lot more effectively than victims of wars in the Middle East. Absent any propaganda, I think this war would still get more attention from Western nations for this reason.

And besides the ethnic/race angle, it's also happening right on the doorstep of NATO, and is being perpetrated by the main adversary NATO exists to counter.

> - Russia is being taken down a peg

Unfortunately, I feel that may be an understatement. My fear is that the Russian Federation may not exist after ~April of next year. That it will splinter into many nuclear armed states.

There aren't really any states to splinter it into. Maybe if you count Crimea, Kaliningrad, Chechnya, Caucasus, Tatarstan, but those are all relatively powerless. Moscow has absolute control over the economy and military.

A more realistic (but still very unlikely) outcome is a power vacuum if Putin is deposed, which will be filled by another aspiring dictator just like him.

> That it will splinter into many nuclear armed states.

Definitely a serious cause for concern, but not uncharted territory. Remember this already happened to the Soviet Union, and ultimately things were arranged so only one nation inherited those nukes. It may happen like that again.

It is another story in EU how we see US as policeman/bud of the world.

> If China wants to go help itself to a chunk of Siberia, nobody is going to be able to stop it.

As someone with north Chinese parents - this isn't as fantasy as you might think. We refer to eastern Siberia as "the lost country", and most Chinese believe China has a legitimate claim to it.

But beyond historical claims, there is a much much more compelling reason for Chinese expansion into a collapsed Russia, and that is easily visible on Google Maps.

The border is heavily developed on one side and completely undeveloped on the other. .....and China needs space to grow.

The only thing holding China back is the strategic anti-US alliance and Russian nuclear weapons.

If Russia collapses and disarms...

None of which is lost on Russian leadership. Which is why they are the tail wagging the dog of their nominal allies, China and Iran.

Neither of these countries was really prepared for a showdown with the West, and all assumed the plan was to wait out the expected financial collapse of US dollar, using BRI and similar platforms and new organizations. This is still on-going, but RF has basically demonstrated that it sits along the BRI's end points in Europe (meaning it can trivially disrupt it), and has left 2 difficult choices for its allies, specially for China: to break from RF (which guarantees China will remain 2nd tier in global pecking order behind the "Anglo-Saxons" [1]), or, let its future be partly determined by the decisions of Putin's Russia. This is how Russia is addressing it's potential collapse [3]: if it happens, it will take down regional rivals [2] down with it. India may turn out to win big by default ..

[1]: basically, Russia's line to them is: if we go down, then you are completely defenseless against the West.

[2]: Russia's historic relations with Turkiye, Iran, and China were generally adversarial.

[3]: meaning the recent decisions of RF were imo forced escalations (under pretext of Ukraine) that address not only their western front but also their eastern front insecurities. If there had been no war but rather a period culminating in a victorious China (via economic means) then Russia would be completely at the mercy of China, and reduced to energy provider for the end points of BRI: China and EU.

> The border is heavily developed on one side and completely undeveloped on the other. .....and China needs space to grow.

OMG, you're right, I saw this:

https://goo.gl/maps/JMUwEHBixEgieHMb6

Zooming in the area reveals a thick pattern of cultivated fields in the China side, but far fewer in the Russia side.

> The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain

To be fair, it's a culmination of decades of NATO military R&D, planning, recon, etc. These weapons are finally being used for what they were created for, stopping a Russian invasion. It's just a shame MANPADS preclude A-10 tankbusting, considering all the Cold War era tanks Russia is using.

The former guy sitting in Mar-a-lago isn't a big fan of Ukraine, so if the republicans get enough seats in the house, support could turn to negotiation pretty quickly.

Edit: don't hate on me for stating the obvious. I'd like to see Putin tried in The Hague.

Lend-Lease basically guarantees Ukraine continues to get US support under Biden. Russia's spend on the GOP is a weak play with very little guaranteed benefits even if the GOP wins by a landslide.

It should be pretty clear by now that some members of the GOP are willingly doing things for Russia, whether by order or pure stupidity.

Some circles on the American right see Russia as some kind of "the last bastion of traditional white European Christianity and family values".

It's also possible that they just like Putin on a personal level because he gets what he wants, doesn't afraid of anything, and nobody can tell him no, and they want that for themselves. If you look into Trump's cabinet, you find many people whose open goals and political ideology states that the president should be a top dog figure who doesn't have to answer to anyone and has supreme power. They are people who lived through the Nixon stupidity and decided "No, he should definitely be able to murder people and get away with it if he wants"

> because he gets what he wants

no politician gets what she/he wants. They can only go upwind. The structural forces - like strategic interests - are forcing the decisions on them. They can move one inch left or right, but that's about it. It doesn't matter if this is a democracy or regime. You can observe it now, when Biden is continuing Trump's policies like trade tariffs on China.

No one wants a war, but if the stability of the system depends on it you are forced to act. I think this war is similar to Opium Wars. Without the trade British Empire would have serious problems.

The world is decarbonising and more than half of RF income comes from natural resources. Putin needed a better position to secure the future of Russian Federation. He tried to use the argument of force in a 3 day war, but the gamble didn't work.

> Regardless of who controls the USA chambers of power, the support of Ukraine will continue,

Republicans (including McCarthy) were saying that if they win they were going to shut down (or at least greatly reduce) the funding. Maybe since they don't seem to be winning the Senate and their margin in the House will be thin they'll forget about that plan?

"The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain, I mean, it's fng cents on the dollar to utterly annihilate the historical strategic enemy AND! not spend a single soldier? It's brilliant."*

If it doesn't lead to nuclear war...

Not sure why this is getting down voted. The war isn't over yet and nuclear war is still a possibility(albeit low). If Putin looses this, and it looks like he will the way things are going, there is a high chance he will be tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Wouldn't it be better for him to nuke the world and at least rule his bunker?

Putin will hit Ukrainian forces with tactical nukes. No global nuclear war will happen.

China is against Putin nuking Ukraine, if he does he will get a death by a thousand cuts.

We don't know for sure what is the level of Chinese influence on Putin and if they against or they are pro-nuke.

Zed-turbo-patrioting

What does that mean?

I think there's a not insignificant amount of the Russian population that has been fed, and thoroughly believes, this was something they had to do and Ukraine is full of literal Nazis.

Russians paint "Z" on their combat vehicles

Those guys who print their "Z" and "V" swastika everywhere.

Letter Z

A reference to the Z symbol Russia has adopted in support of its military invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60644832

I believe "Zed" is referring to "Z" as a symbol of the invasion (so the brother in question is a huge booster of Russia's war)

The letter Z (pronounced like zed by some people) is used as a symbol of support for the war (a lot of Russian vehicles had a Z on them for some reason). Zed-turbo-patrioting is then probably the act of being extremely patriotic and in support of the war

Because Ukraine and Russia operate the same vehicles, friendly fire is an even greater danger than usual. Russia uses 3 different symbols on their vehicles depending which group they're from. Z is for the eastern front as I recall.

Ukraine, for their part, likes to just paint a simple Ukrainian flag.

We don't know exactly what the letters originally meant, but the most likely theory is that Z is for "zapad" meaning "west", and V is for "vostok", meaning "east", and they correspond to the Russian west and east military districts.

As for Ukrainian vehicles, they can be often seen adorned with white crosses in the more recent photos.

But why Latin Z and V and not З и В?

Much easier to draw with a bucket of paint and a brush. Also easier to distinguish at a distance.

A tongue-in-cheek joke in Russia is that these aren't actually Z and V, but rather Ꙁ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_(Cyrillic)#History_and_shap...) and Ѵ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhitsa), both a part of the historical early Cyrillic alphabet, symbolizing the return to "tradition".

Thanks for the context, I'm a beginner in Russian and don't know much history of the language.

The "Z" thing confused me for a while. I assumed it expressed support for Ukraine, because it's the first letter of their president's last name [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

Or, “we’re coming for Z[elensky]”

Z is the symbol (and V as well) used by the Russia army as marker on vehicles and has rapidly become a sign similar to Swastika of the Third Reich. It has a fairly interesting and mixed history of origin. The pro-war channels are called Z-channels, frequently using that letter in their name (and sometimes V)

Turbo-patriot is a term very frequently used to describe the people who are super extra patriotic in their support of the Putin and the war being prosecuted

> Z is the symbol (and V as well) used by the Russia army as marker on vehicles and has rapidly become a sign similar to Swastika of the Third Reich

In what sence?

I agree generally, but the Iranian weapons are super cheap and have been battle tested against US air defences in Saudi Arabia and performed very well, so it makes a lot of sense to use them.

The drones haven't performed well against any air defense systems. They're just cheap and an effective way to waste SAM interceptors.

they successfully hit aramco facilities in SA.

Incorrect. They have defeated Saudi Patriot systems in order to strike Aramco facilities and obviously they have defeated whatever Ukraine has at least to some level, which is currently unknown.