Best Of

Ukranian Christmas present to Russia. Orenburg gas plant is on fire.

https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2004172940745785687

Has Ukraine won yet as you were predicting as early as 2023?

Yep they’re winning.

50,000 dead Russians to not take Kupyansk, and 100,000 dead Russians to not take Pokrovsk.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

The only nations "winning" the SMO are the USA and China.
Ukraine is a bankrupt ruin in political crisis.
Russia and the EU are diminished.
The UK are irrelevant, just rowing in on whatever the EU position is without any voice in shaping it.

Barring Ukraine running out of other people's money or the Farage of Kiev being toppled, the SMO will probably continue on its current trajectory for a while yet. Incremental, bloody gains by Russia and occasional PIRA style spectaculars by Ukraine. It'll all be over by next Christmas.

I've long argued the current situation suits a lot of the players including Putin and Zelensky as it legitimises both of them in power.

The Russians, Ukrainians and others doing the fighting and dying are the losers but no one worries about them.

The entire defence industry, from analysts to manufacturers, has done very well out of this war. It has pushed itself up the political agenda and persuaded western Governments Russia is a military colossus equivalent to the Warsaw Pact (it can't even reach Kharkiv) and more public funds have to be thrown at defence meaning more weapons to be manufactured and sold and more defence analysts appearing on talk shows telling us what a threat Russia is and if you don't accept the argument they are a conventional military threat, the argument shifts to cyber warfare and how they could shut down the Internet.

The defence industry is also learning about how wars are fought in the first quarter of the 21st century, the power of drones to strike far beyond the frontlines, the vulnerability of armour etc, etc. That will shape defence strategies and scenarios for decades to come.

The arms manufacturers, whether State owned or private, have also done well with demand for their products, funding for R&D and Government approval - the last thing any of them want is peace.