Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ukraine's ambassador to the US said in an interview that Putin is only pretending to negotiate, while really he's stalling for time because he knows that militarily he's winning.

I agree with this in a sense. Russian forces are making tiny incremental advances with horrible casualties, and dishonesty comes with anything Putin says. He's stalling for time, but the real question is, will he get to victory before he runs entirely through his human capital? A misjudgment here will probably be fatal to his regime.

She said that the Russians can continue the war a lot longer, while Ukraine can't. (This is what I pointed out a while back: in a war of attrition, Russia wins.)

This reveals a very shallow understanding of military principles. There's a lot more that goes into an attritional battle than sheer size or numbers. Things like combat efficiency, positional warfare, logistical support, and so on matter a lot in attritional warfare.

I don't know how much of this kind of news gets through to English-speaking people. Any positive news for the Ukrainian side gets played up in the media, but I suspect that what they report is intentionally unbalanced.

I know what Russian media reports is unbalanced. And which bias you read depends on which sources you use. Assuming that all Western sources are equally biased in the same direction is itself evidence of your own bias, because anyone who reads from varied sources knows that they differ in reportage.

For example, yesterday Ukraine hit a building in Grozny. It appears to have had no military significance, and an empty police station was damaged.

Russia, on the other hand, is sending wave after wave of drones and missiles that target the Ukrainian energy grid. Currently the oil refinery and power plant at Kremenchuk are burning. A week ago about 600,000 people in and around Kiev had no electricity.

You write "It appears". Weasel-words like that raise my antennae, so why don't you present your source for this statement ... or is this just you pulling an opinion out of your ass (again)?

One thing that's changed: The New York Times (and other papers that tell us what the powerful people want us to know) is starting to warn us that things are not going well for Ukraine. This is no surprise, obviously, but some people have been in denial.

https://archive.md/F4HkP

Anyone with half-a-brain has known that Ukraine has been in deep shit for the last four years. What you continually elide is that Russia too -- or, rather, Putin's regime -- finds itself in a very dangerous spot with not only no clear avenue to victory, but no clear victory conditions or exit strategy ... while all Ukraine has to do for victory is not lose.