His campaign landed better because of his palatable way of speaking and saying a lot without saying anything, as most people that voted for him were not really aware of his positions on any serious subject.
This is not remotely true, Ukraine can't retake what it's lost they have no men left. If it were true Zelensky wouldn't be contemplating ceding territory to Russia. It sucks but Ukraine lost in 2014 when the world let Crimea get annexed with no response.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/zelensky-says-for-first-...
You're extremifying.
You could have said "they don't have enough people". But instead you had to dial it up to "they have no men left".
No matter what is actually happening on the ground -- you definitely won't be able to make heads or tails of it, if you keep confounding yourself with rhetoric like this.
The realities of war are not LGBTQ-friendly.
My male cousin has not been allowed to leave the country for almost 3 years. His wife is in Germany.
That line had nothing whatsoever to do with this "people"/"men" nonsense. I was referring simply to the quantifier.
What’s the difference between those two?
The former suggests a situation which is quite dire, and that is certainly accurate in regard to Ukraine's current situation. The latter (if taken at face value) is essentially totalistic, and objectively misleading. That doesn't mean that that was their intent, of course. But to my ears it comes across as an overly emotionalized and in any case muddled characterization of the situation.
Kind of like when, say, a startup is going through rough times and someone says "everyone's leaving" when really it was just their friend and a couple other people who have left.
There's a word for this expressive style, btw: "histrionics".
I'd argue the situation is quite dire and the, arguably fatalistic, phrasing is not incorrect here.
Men are not allowed to exit the country, and I know personally quite a few cases where males, who were in no real fighting age or condition, were literally picked up on the street and sent to the front. With handcuffs and aggressive force. In my former hometown.
So, staying in your analogy, "everyone's leaving" is rather correct, with the modifier "...who has enough money or sheer luck". "But they're still there" feels like nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.
In that sense I appreciate your clarification as well.
As one datapoint I’d love to hear a convincing argument, and really don’t have a strong opinion on who will win. If you make a more trustworthy argument for why Ukraine will lose, I promise I’ll read it
Edit: truthfully, this is the most convincing argument I’ve seen so far https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-ukraine-win-t...
Edit: wow, somehow I wasn’t even close, I’m like three generations off
And what does this have to do with your male cousin?
GP's comment was:
> You could have said "they don't have enough people". But instead you had to dial it up to "they have no men left"
which I, mistakenly, as GP pointed out here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42349533, assumed to be a play on "there are also women on the front". Which there are, but in vastly fewer numbers.
You're right that there are men still living in Ukraine, Zelensky is still alive after all. However, the manpower situation has been pretty bleak for a while. [1] I'm in regular contact with people in theater and I'm not far off in saying 'there are no men left'. Russia is still advancing albeit slowly. We'll likely have new borders in a few months. Almost time to update your globe.
[1] https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2024-03-16/ukraine-v...
Best to luck to whomever in your in contact with.
I won't be changing my globe for anyone, however.
Thanks, hopefully they'll be home soon. I've been mowing his grass for nearly 3 years, hardly a commensurate sacrifice I must admit.
Isn't their rate of advancement a lot faster than a year ago?
The first week of the war was a "fast" advance. Even this "accelerated" rate is basically on par with WWI.