Now that Ukraine gets what they want will they win the war?

[Anonymous]

The US is sending 30 abrams tanks, while germany and poland are sending leopard tanks, this is what ukraine been asking since the war started, now that they got what they wanted so badly, will they win?

[lightbulb27]

I don't see a win here fella, not with Tanks... just an escalation which ends up with hypersonic missiles pointed at each other.

The tanks require time to deliver, time to train personal (and replacement personnel)... which is happening somewhat in USA, Oklahoma. Requires repair, logistics and fuel delivery... Abrams suck a lot of fuel. Does ukraine even have electricity? Also ammunition is needed and they burn through a lot of shells.

Then there's the question of #'s... are these enough tanks to change anything materially?

I'd say no... not substantially... delay maybe, or possibly accelerate Russia's planned invasion. Only thing that might help ukraine is global warming... lack of ground freezing.

As well, USA will be sending USA "advisors" into Ukraine to help with all this equipment. Sounding like Vietnam yet, except worse?

It's a small mater of definition as to whether we are at war with Russia. In essence, we are... for it is USA that is essential to bring it to a peaceful end. This is so dangerous it's not funny. When will Russia declare that the tanks being shipped across international waters and airspace are "fair game" to be destroyed on delivery? On location in Germany? If I were Putin, I'd... never mind... I'm not as patient as he is...

We, you democrats, really F'd up putting this government in place. probability of paying a heavy price tag, is very high...

#countyourblessingstoday

[lightbulb27]

Russia will keep trying to drive to the Dnipro, and if they have Bakhmut, then they will get a huge chunk of that land, at least for now. What turns them around is anyones guess. But even if that happens... they turn around and go home... then what? They have NATO all over their border, worse than before, with freshly deployed hypersonic missiles from USA pointed at them and they in kind do the same.
It will require discussions, but trust is broken from the prior Minsk accords. To me, Russia cannot stand losing this... so it goes on to worse levels til there is security or perspective change, possible catastrophic bad decision... is possible.

[Soteris]

What they are trying to do is actually not that relevant. Mostly because it does not help end the war so its just faffing about quite frankly without a plan. As for capturing Bakhmut, it does not really accomplish anything by itself outside of gaining access to actual important cities being Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Basically, Bakhmut is a stepping stone to a stepping stone to a small local victory that won't contribute to the end of the conflict in any meaningful way.

This is Russias major problem. They lack any way to "Win" the conflict, as in force the Ukrainians to concede defeat. Their original plan was to capture the capital and force the government to flee into exile while putting in a fake government using their puppet which used to be the president of Ukraine and then declare victory. This could very well have worked, if they succeeded in their capture of the capital in the early part of the war.

Now however, not even that would work. More or less, the more Russia fights the more Ukraine wants to win and the further Russia gets from signing a peace treaty on their own terms. This war could drag on for a years upon years upon years.. That is if Russia was in a stable situation. Russia is crumbling behind the scenes so if they can't finish this in a year or two then its a question if Russia would even be whole afterwards or if it would shatter like the USSR.

As such, Russia is currently in a lose-lose situation with no way out.

[lightbulb27]

@Soteris If that were true, wouldn't they see "the writing on the wall" and withdrawal with what they have and live to fight on another day when they have better advantage? They could do that. But they aren't doing that...
I would think at this point they are pushing the whole of the Easter border to the west until they hit the dnipro. That's about 150 miles. It's open flat lands west of Bhakmut so I hear, so once they secure that, ukranians don't have such a good position, they'd really need those tanks. If the ground freezes up, I'd think russia pushes to new positions and digs more trenches.

[Soteris]

For the Ukrainians the city of Bakhmut is just a small mining town of around 71k citizens (before war). Aside from the principle of the thing to not give ground to your enemy when its your home territory, it means very little. The only reason Ukrainians are putting in so much effort to protect it is because the Russians are obsessed with it themselves which gives Ukraine a chance to make this victory expensive for Russia.

Losing Bakhmut only really gives Russia access to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk which are much much larger than Bakhmut and much easier to defend. It does not give Russia and meaningful way to push to the Dnipro and considering the fact that they are struggling so much with Bakhmut they would not get there anyway since there are countless of similarly unimportant cities between them and Dnipro meaning it would probably take them a lifetime if they progressed at this rate not to mention the extreme costs that Russia could never sustain.

Again, Bakhmut was never important, or even particularly defensive. It could be any city, and if Russia pushes towards the Dnipro it will BECOME every city along the way.

So why is Russia being so stubborn on this? Why is this part of the frontline the only one that keeps attacking? Well, surprisingly the reason is mostly political although there are countless factors that goes into this. Everything from rivalries in the Russia command structure to propaganda etc..

[Soteris]

To make this easy I am just going to bring up two. First of all, Putin "officially" annexed the region Donbas. The problem of this is that there is a significant section of the Donbas that he is not controlling, more specifically Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Without controlling these two cities and not to mention all the other territory, including Bakhmut, makes his claim of annexation very very silly and means that he probably won't be able to ask for it during a peace negotiation.

This is important because Donbas is basically all of eastern Ukraine, up to including the coast at Mariupol and both the two separatist states that was also folded into Russia previously. More specifically its part of the Donetsk Oblast which again is claimed by the Separatists of the Donetsk Peoples Republic. Basically, its very important that Russia captures this to save face and secure their gains or this war would basically be pointless from their side of things.

[Soteris]

The second reason I want to bring up is also political, but in a whole different way. I am certain you have heard of the Wagner Group. This group of private military has been in a political conflict with the official Russian army for a while now and the owner of Wagner wants to basically drag his chair in and become part of the inner group of Putins allies while kicking away his main rival, the actual army. There is a lot of Drama in here, with a capital D for emphasis, but we dont need to go into that beyond pointing it out.

The important part is how this influences the war. Mainly, how it pushes the owner of Wagner to try achieve more impressive military achievements than the Russian army to make them stand out and get all the fame. The target they picked, Bakhmut. They have thrown bodies at the problem ever since with no regards for how successful it is because they are still getting SOME gains and that is all they need to win more and more political favor back in Russia. The owner of Wagner does not care about the actual war, he barely even understands it, he just wants to play the political game back in Moscow which is why it ended up becoming like this.

[NamerOfStars]

What they want? This isn't what Ukraine wants; this is the run-up to World War 3. Once again, Germany and Russia are bickering over the land between them, and the US is trying to meddle in the way that turns them the most profit- which is exactly how the FIRST two world wars began. Additionally, it's a case of gradually-increasing US involvement in wars that have nothing to do with us, which exactly how Vietnam (well, the US involvement in it, anyway) began; funnily enough, it's under the administration of a guy who Gulf-of-Tonkined a completely unrelated crisis into existence.

The only way this could push things toward an end that doesn't end in a nuclear holocaust is if it gives Ukraine enough of an edge to start pushing the Russians back, and Putin realizes it and makes excuses to withdraw his forces and declare an end to the war as he accomplished his objectives- just like they did (and we did, come to think of it) in Afghanistan. With Zelensky and Biden in office, I don't see that happening.

[Anonymous]

Still too few but a start. It was all really a curfufill to basically to give Russia a chance to get out of Ukraine.

Now the Ukrainians will be able to add to the T72s and other cold war tanks they have so 30 M1 Abrahams, 14 challengers, 62 Leopards from Poland and Germany and should expect donations of lepoards from virtually every other country who have lepoards that could well afford to give 10-20 each taking the total up from 100 modern tanks to 2-400. The UShas 4000 m1 Abrahams is storage..

Some might compare the situation to giving weapons to the ARVN in Vietnam or the Afghan national army but those militaries were poorly led and had no will to fight especially after America left. The Ukrainians have the will to fight and are doing so.

[lalaloveee]

So now that poor Zelensky got what he wanted from his sugardaddy America, he won't put on a crying show anymore?

It's okay, Russia will find a new way to hurt that idiot's feelings.

By the way, imagine Zelensky in those tanks, with high heels and latex pants.

[Asker]

Thats a funny picture

[Alexandrubaschet08]

The only idiot seem to be you.
Russia is not a mach in this conflict.
You will all see how Russia will fall.

[lalaloveee]

@Alexandrubaschet08 Are you trying to make more funnier jokes than comedian Zelensky's?

[Alexandrubaschet08]

At last Zelensky make way better comedy then Putin when he say he will take Ukraine in 3 days :))))))))

[lalaloveee]

@Alexandrubaschet08 This sentence was a propaganda myth that media invented to rally support for sending arms to Ukraine by creating an impression that Ukraine was beating expectations - expectations that Russia never made.

You will not find the only evidence that he said this sentence. You made me laugh at your stupidity for a minute, congrats, you've done your service alright.

[BeMuse]

Ukraine already lost the war. They are just too stupid to realize it. No a handful of main battle tanks in the hands of a bunch of grabasstic unorganized unskilled Nazi combatants without proper training in maintaining and operating said equipment in a coordinated fashion will not change anything for them. The tanks were designed for combined arms operations not for Nazi death marches into enemy lines of a superior army with far more men and equipment. Most countries that choose to field the abrams take 5-7 years of consistent training to get to a level where they have basic competence to use them properly. When Americans used them successfully against Iraq for example, we had 10 years of experience on the weapon system and a solid year of training just for the invasion mission for that particular country on top of that decade of experience. Good tanks in incompetent hands are less effective then bad tanks in skilled hands. America is good at war, because we are the best trained. Ukraine has no chance to train properly on the Abrams so they will just die.

[FreyaRed]

"will they win?"
Nope. Ukraine can defeat Russia, but this won't be a win for both of them. From perspective of NATO, the more Russian human resources are liquidated, the more Russian military assets destroyed, the weaker remains Russia and Russia is significant part of anti-NATO coalition. When NATO equipment is capable to obliterate Russian forces, China will think twice to do something stupid in east Asia in next decade.

[Soteris]

The moment Russia failed to capture the capital of Ukraine in the first few days, the war was already over and Russia is just trying to hold on to whatever shreds they have clawed out of Ukraine up-to this moment. Unless something miraculous happens Russia simply can't win this war. This is with or without the help from the West. The assistance of the west with such things as tanks, artillery and such things are just hastening the process, not fundamentally altering the outcome.

[EmmaMary]

One can only hope that this will be the final downfall of that fucking murdering, mentally deranged despot Putin... Will someone please hand him a white flag, or better still just "double tap" the fucker.

[Alexandrubaschet08]

Yes, but it will take time anyway.
I think for 4-5 yares this war will be here even by pushing the russian back to they shit nation

[KostasKouvalis]

No. He will ask for fighter jets next

[Anonymous]

Fuck Ukraine.