Russian Ukrainian War

[Blademaster]

This is normal. When a war is fought under a stop watch. Grabbing territory for the sake of bargaining is the norm.

And Putin will even deny that option. Russia is on the verge of retaking the Kursk area back.

 

[Akim]

Everyone here is so naive.

 

[WW2historian]

This is normal. When a war is fought under a stop watch. Grabbing territory for the sake of bargaining is the norm.

Putin does not have a stop watch. If you can show me a similar example of this from history I would appreciate it, because I can't find any such example where one side is on a path to total victory and the other side grabs a little land that is a death trap cauldron surrounded on three sides. Putin loves that fact that he has a death pit where Zelensky keeps sending his top troops to die in.

 

[Corvus Splendens]

Volodymyr Zelensky erupted furiously at a senior member of Donald Trump's administration and left him trembling with fear, it was claimed today, as the US and Ukraine inch closer to a deal to end the Ukraine war.

Earlier this month, Trump dispatched his newly minted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Kyiv to present the Ukrainian leader with a deal exchanging some of Ukraine's vast mineral wealth for security guarantees against future Russian attacks.

But upon reviewing the contract in detail, Zelensky and his aides discovered that there were no real security guarantees to be found.

Instead, the contract was reportedly more exploitative than the conditions imposed on Germany after World War I, expecting Ukraine to relinquish huge quantities of oil, gas and mineral resources as a payment for US aid already provided.

Recalling the president's fury, Ukrainian lawmakers claimed Zelensky's bellows reverberated through the halls of Kyiv's presidential palace as he laid into Bessent for expecting him to 'sell his country' to Washington.

'He was very angry,' a person present told the Financial Times, explaining how the gilded doors of Zelensky's presidential office did nothing to stop those outside from hearing every word of the verbal beatdown.

Bessent was visibly shaken, his voice trembling as he delivered a stumbling statement to reporters moments after enduring the wrath of the Ukrainian President.

It comes as Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today declared Moscow would 'stop hostilities only when negotiations produce a firm and sustainable result that suits the Russian Federation'.

Meanwhile, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused Europe and the UK of prolonging the fighting in response to a fresh package of sanctions levelled by Brussels.

A dozen leaders from Europe and Canada are in Ukraine's capital to mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion today, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Donald Trump, today meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Washington, is notably absent.

Daily Mail

 

[craigs]

War coming to end and military lessons from it.

This war is coming to an end in Ukraine……there are two big lessons emerge:

1. UAV emerged as a big factor in the battlefield

2. Naval armed devices managed to bottle up Russian fleet in the Black Sea.

For the first, a lot has already been said in the media that how successful UAV, flying bombs etc. were.

For the second point, where the Russian major ships were sent to the bottom of the sea with unsophisticated radio controlled boats or under surface devices and not torpedos or missiles were used by Ukraine to sink large naval vessels of 10,000 ton dead weight. After three or four losses, the Russian fleet retreated to safety of their naval base. It was a great Ukrainian achievement.

I would like knowledgeable people to comment of successful Ukrainian naval successes.

One more point which you forgot or ignored completely - though tangential to the conflict in Ukraine the conflict also showed that a rag-tag group of people with spunk can easily bottle up the combined naval force of the US, UK and France in the Arabian Sea.

 

[karn]

And Putin will even deny that option. Russia is on the verge of retaking the Kursk area back.

You are correct . There is no way that russia would leave that piece of kursk as a bargaining chip before negotiations. It is what the ukrainians believe .. if they hold onto kursk they can say sem to sem.

 

[Blademaster]

You are correct . There is no way that russia would leave that piece of kursk as a bargaining chip before negotiations. It is what the ukrainians believe .. if they hold onto kursk they can say sem to sem.

Ukraine only held an area that is about 30 miles long by 20 miles wide. That is like a large city area or a county size area. Now it is half of that about 305 square miles by last admission which was back in November 2024.

Ukraine loses more than 40% of territory it seized in Russia's Kursk region

Ukraine lost more than 40% of the territory in Russia's Kursk region that it captured in a surprise offensive in August with the Russians launching multiple counter-attacks, a senior source in Kyiv's…

www.france24.com

So it holds much less now whereas Russia still has over 35k square miles of Ukrainian territory which does not include Crimea. So Russia will never accept Ukraine's ridiculous demand of giving up Ukrainian territory for Russian territory which Russia will get back anyway.