Just such a travesty that they need to do this at all.
Obviously Russia can do anything that Ukraine can do but Ukraine has a very large and wealthy contingent of the world behind them and they are motivated far beyond the Russians. I really hope they will be able to force some kind of breakthrough to the point that even Putin realizes that giving up is the better outcome.
Most of whose did not live under Ukrainian control for a decade now.
Those who did not live under Ukrainian control have lived under occupation.
Russians understand what's going on here and are motivated to not let that happen. At the moment they are successful.
That's just funny. Seriously, I can't tell if you're trolling or serious but on the off chance that you are serious: you're so misinformed it is tragic, at the same time you are apparently able to fix that and refuse to do so. Which makes me wonder why. I have enough contacts in former USSR countries and inside Russia itself to know that this sentiment is prevalent, wilful misunderstanding as some kind of defense mechanism. But in the modern day with ample access to information you really have no excuse.
Serbia will have to come to terms with the degree to which Russia has been using them at some point. This probably won't happen until Russia itself has gone through an enlightenment and shaken of the current crop of mobsters. I'm not holding my breath for that one.
Russian citizenship is a prized asset in the post-USSR countries to the extent that people spend effort to move to Russian Federation and pay money to engage in shady schemes to obtain it.
If drones are widespread within Russia ... that logic might not hold so well.
A blade cuts two ways, and much of that is at the initiative of the wielder.
Let's be happy the Germans didn't have access to any of this tech in the middle of WWII, their V weapons were bad enough as it was.
Direct attacks on them would trigger Article 5.
This is one case where asymmetric advantages favour Ukraine over Russia.
As to general availability: I'm presuming individuals or non-governmental entities would have access to the technology. Again, in Ukraine there seems to be far greater alignment against a common enemy, as illustrated by Russia's failure to avert open rebellion within its own allied forces, and apparent organic resistance and sabotage withing Russia and Belarus against Russian forces and logistics infrastructure.
But a volley of explosives they are not. If that’s all you want, it’s still much cheaper to use artillery. Which both sides are fond of
I mean the US Democrats voted down even the mere notion that maybe the most surface-level audit of US aid to Ukraine could be allowed[1].
[1]https://theintercept.com/2023/08/02/ukraine-aid-special-insp...
That's a bit overstatement, no? I mean we have Trump who is very visibly admirer of Putin and his practices and various other dictatorial murderers like MBL and strongly supports current apartheid in Israel, no change there since invasion. If he wins the next elections, which seems more and more probable, Ukraine is going to lose all western support overnight with corresponding results for war.
I don't get it at all, republicans should be as anti-russian as possible historically since current russia is much more Soviet russia rather than anything else, but they keep voting for him and he was very clear on the topic in the past. That says more about real opinions of republicans rather than anything else.
Or am I missing something as an US outsider?
I reckon Poland will still be pretty much in favour of helping Ukraine push Russia back. Probably a bunch of other European nations too.
The issue with most of the news on the matter is that it's so deluded by partisan politics that even those reporting on their own poll results don't interpret them sanely.
For example, on the surface polls might say that Republicans generally oppose aid to Ukraine. However, if you plainly ask them if they support aiding Ukraine they might be in favor, but if you ask them if they support Biden's handling of the war in Ukraine, they'll be more likely to be opposed.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/americ...
Isolationism won't solve your problems. America was isolationistst before ww1 and poor as hell. The good times came when the sovjet union forced large companies to bargain with unions.
The vast majority of aid to Ukraine is in weapons that are either going to be scrapped or only a handful are purchased, it’s a bit hard to feed children on surplus DCPIM munitions.
> the position is simple: war is bad, we are prolonging the war in Ukraine by funding it, therefore funding it is bad.
Not funding Ukraine won’t stop the war it will only allow Russia to move the war in the direction that it wants.
If you’re anti war then you should want Ukraine to have all the weapons they need to end the war, so they can win the war as soon as possible and put an end to it.
If your for ending Ukrainian aid you’re not for ending the war or anti war you are for feeding Ukrainians into the wood chipper and giving Russia exactly what it wants.
I'd bet that it will not. Because America can not afford to be dragged into the much larger war that will follow if that were the case. Ukraine is - cynically - the cheap option.
Can you provide a source, because everything I've seen says otherwise.
Even Democrat-friendly media, has been essentially forced to reluctantly report that indeed, the US government has no idea where billions of dollars of weapons and aid are ending up[1]. And there is always a delay with these things, so we can only assume the amount is exponentially larger and will never be truly known.
Clearly, if the material and monetary aid is already being audited, it's not being done well or correctly, so an actual auditor was more than warranted.
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[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/14/us-ukraine-aid-cabl... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/27/...
The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) is committed to conducting independent and objective audits, evaluations, and investigations to promote efficiency and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse in DoD support provided to Ukraine.
In addition, the DoD OIG coordinates closely with the OIGs of the Department of State (DoS) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and chairs a joint working group with representatives from multiple Federal oversight agencies to ensure a whole-of-government approach to Ukraine oversight.