"Before the shocking incompetence, corruption and brutality of the Russian military was revealed."
Sorry, are we talking about Abu Graib or KBR?, anybody read anything about the second battle of Fallujah?
Where I work -and I am at work now, so I am a bit bored- a gentleman came the other day with a small Ukrainian flag in his jacket, was he wearing an Iraqi flag before? Did we "all" wanted Iraq to win?
I was reading something about Ukrainian Resistance... do they mean terrorists?, freedom fighters maybe?... or enemy combatants?
Mind, I am not defending anybody, I am blaming everybody... else.
A friend of mine was arguing that they are "killing people" in Ukraine... well, UK is selling weapons to Saudi Arabia -that bastion of Westerns Civilization-, Saudi Arabia has been killing people in Yemen for the last seven years -there is a truce now, but it was already killing people there during the Yom Kippur War-, how many refugees from Yemen are we taking?, are we selling weapons to Yemen too?
Sorry, to me it sounds more like fashion: Save the dolphins!, we don't care about the baby-seals this season. Yes, I am a "bit" callous.
From the military point of view...
Somebody was saying that we well know the truth in 50 years... Yes, something like that, like we all know the truth about the death of Lord Kitchener and the Tonkin Gulf Incident.
I do remember G. W. Bush saying "job done", it was?, it was such a perfect military operation?, it has been anyone, ever? The Six Day War was a great victory, but if you read about it, far, far away from perfect. If we look at the map of Ukraine, the south of Ukraine looks like a Russian defeat?, even if I keep reading in the newspapers that Ukraine is winning.
I don't know what Russia was thinking, maybe in 50 years we will know... but they got to Kiev's gates in two days, where was the enemy?, avoiding combat?, that would have been a wise move.
-And I think that would have been the right time to negotiate, it's war now, the long "before" is of no use now; like in the Middle-East, you get into a good position and we negotiate the end of the conflict, when the south was sill in Ukrainian hands-.
The only thing I remember is that the Ukrainian Army blow up a bridge, did Russia fail before Kiev, before Kharkov?, I don't think they wanted those cities, but the threat is a good negotiating point. I cannot remember anything about devastating the whole country, massive air attacks hitting everything -yes, planes are more expensive and I mean massive-. Russia thought it was going to a picnic?, it hasn't been the first time in military history. It seems that now it's playing to win, probably it should have done that from the very beginning, but that is more expensive, even if cheaper at the end. My point is that I don't think we have information about what is actually going on, Ukraine was talking talking about Russian casualties, they were retreating, but the Russians could actually count the corpses in the field; every destroyed tank is a Soviet era tank, can we check the owner's papers?
Do we think that Ukraine is going to launch an actual offensive to recover the south? and the Donbas too?, with american weapons? and the supply of ammo for how long a war? Arab-Israeli wars were fought with American and Soviet weapons, and somebody was saying that Russia cannot build computer-chips?, how quickly can US build a hundred Abrams? Both countries have huge armies and a huge presence in the weapons market, but this is not WWII.
Some time ago I was reading that Russia wanted the south of Ukraine as a land corridor between Panama and the Donbas, sorry, Crimea. It didn't make sense to me, too much territory, not enough Russians... I was completely wrong, the Sea of Azov is a Russian Sea now, but let's forget the NATO saying in the 90's that there would be no expansion to the East, let's forget that US din't want Soviet missiles in Cuba, or NATO missiles in Ukraine?
Maybe in 50 years...
History is written with the lies of the winners, or something like that.
PS: If anybody doesn't like my reference to any country, feel free to replace it by Rome, Numantia or Carthage.