Friday open thread: War in Ukraine updates

On February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

Like many observers, I was expecting the Russians to rapidly defeat the Ukrainian military in the field only to get bogged down fighting in major cities. Yet the courage, determination, and skill of the Ukrainian military, the sheer chutzpah of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the raw will to fight of the Ukrainian people caused the Russian invasion to bog down much earlier.

I would be remiss, however, to forget the crucial role that horrendous preparations conducted by the Russian military, not to mention decades of systemic corruption inside their armed forces, played as well. The Ukrainians themselves will tell you.

The Russians have paid a heavy price for their decision to invade Ukraine. Even the most limited estimates of how many Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine over just under five months have already exceeded their losses during their war in Afghanistan. Despite the ruble recovering for a bit, the Russian economy has taken a beating and is even threatening to default. So the sanctions, when followed, have some effect.

The Russian army has behaved exactly as expected in several ways. Thanks in part to bad logistical planning, Russian forces are short on food and fuel. The result has been widespread and systematic looting of Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation. Sadly, the looted items are not only things like flat screen TVs but also food and fuel, goods needed to sustain the Ukrainian people. Even worse, the Russian war machine has deliberately targeted noncombatants.

Other war crimes have included systematic mass rape, torture of civilians, and forced deportations to prison camps inside Russia.

But the images of systematic mass murder coming from outside of Bucha and other liberated territories really show what Putin’s regime is hoping to accomplish inside Ukraine: the assimilation and utter destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation.

Current Situation

The Russian forces have withdrawn from Kyiv and have begun to concentrate their forces around Donbass and Southern Ukraine.

Despite enduring heavy losses, the Russian forces have slowly made steady gains in Eastern Ukraine in Donbass. However, the Russian forces have significantly slowed down in Southern Ukraine and even lost ground around the city of Kherson.

It is vital to keep in mind that although the Russian forces have taken serious losses, so have the Ukrainian armed forces. By their own admission, the Ukrainian armed forces have lost at least ten thousand soldiers killed in action. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been raped, tortured, malnourished, and killed at the hands of the invading Russians, and millions more have been displaced, either fleeing West or, even worse, being forcefully deported into Russia itself.

Ukraine can win this war, but it will take a lot of time and far more support from the Free World.

Click here to send support to the Ukrainian armed forces.

Remember what Putin has supported stateside and that he still has to answer for what he did to help Trump rise to power. Most of the Free World has similar stories.

The Russian economy and war machine is on the ropes; now is the time to destroy it for good.

Slava Ukraini!