Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid

  • President Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the US didn’t send it more aid.
  • House Republicans have been stalling on a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine.
  • “It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country “will lose the war” against Russia if Congress does not act to send it more aid, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” he said, per AFP.

For months, House Republicans have stalled on a bill containing $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, stipulating that it should also include increased funding for security at the US southern border.

Grant_M,
@Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

Putin’s man Trump is stopping a vote on the floor.

Burn_The_Right,

As conservatives cheer.

Conservatism is death.

geography082,

More weapo… aid

sturmblast,

Weaponaid? Is that what Chuck Norris drank instead of Gaatorade? ;)

splonglo,

Russia’s already lost. They traded their entire military export market for a piece of land.

Burn_The_Right,

Their trade with China, Iran and North Korea is through the roof. It may not be as diverse or lucrative as western trade, but it’s good enough to keep them in decent shape.

Physical destruction needs to be visited upon Putin. The financial pressure will not be enough.

splonglo,

Since 2023 Russia has dropped from the world’s number 2 arms exporter, to 6th place.

Burn_The_Right,

That’s good. Sorry to hear they export anything at all at the moment, but a major drop like that is good.

VinnyDaCat,

Republicans doing typical Republican things to no one’s benefit.

That said, I don’t think aid in the form of sending more arms over is right. The proper humanitarian course of action would have been to send a coalition of troops over to Ukraine to forcefully shut the situation down. So many lives would have been saved had we done this earlier.

Instead we have chosen to let the war drag on by sending weapons and supplies, letting both Ukrainians and Russians(many of which who aren’t there by choice) slaughter each other.

EatATaco,

Sending troops over runs a huge risk of causing the war to spread, bring more, wider-spread suffering. The us would love to do just that, but it comes with such a massive risk which is why they aren’t.

sturmblast,

The USA sending troops would basically cause WWIII to kick off. No one wants that.

VinnyDaCat,

It’s possible yes, but you also have to consider that perhaps Russia might not have ever invaded if we had shown that we were willing to fight.

A large part of the invasion was the fact that they knew they could get away with it. They know that we’re just going to watch on the sidelines, providing some support from time to time. The people scared of a World War seem to forget that World War II started while the major powers at the time allowed Poland to be conquered before doing anything.

EatATaco,

Except we haven’t done nothing. We’ve provided Ukraine with a ton of aid, which has to this point paralyzed Russia. And I think we should continue to do so for the reasons you point out.

Send troops in actually starts a war between us an Russia. That’s not a good thing that will decrease suffering.

VinnyDaCat,

Are we not in a proxy war with Russia already by providing Ukraine with aid?

If Russia truly refuses to back down when the other major superpower of the world getting directly involved, then that says much more about the future of our world.

You’re right that we’ve done a great deal of damage to Russia. We’ve decimated their birthrate for generations I imagine, but that came at the cost of Ukrainian blood. If we can take preventative measures then we should take them whenever possible, and even if it causes a major war it will possibly prevent more in the future.

Cryophilia,

The difference between a war and a proxy war is huge. You want to see Russian bombers over Anchorage?

VinnyDaCat,

It’ll happen eventually surely? You can’t keep standing down from them. They will continue to take more and more if you do. At some point you will have to tell Russia no much more firmly and risk a confrontation or nuclear war. It’s inevitable.

Cryophilia,

At some point you will have to tell Russia no much more firmly and risk a confrontation or nuclear war.

That point is Ukraine.

Cuttlefish1111,

Could help Palestine in the same fashion. Send in a coalition from everywhere except key players. Get serious with retaliatory attacks on aggressors.

phoenixz, (edited )

Sending in troops would be extremely risky as that would be a direct war between Russia and the west, basically the start for WWIII with Nike’s and other fun things.

Edith: nukes, not Nike’s

kromem,

basically the start for WWIII with Nike’s and other fun things.

“WWIII: Just do it.”

blazeknave,

These are Russian talking points under the guise of practical middle path. Fuck you. Slava Ukraine. Don’t blame them for fighting back and ignoring the fact foreign boots equal Putin’s finger on the button. “Just give them a little farming land, the locals want it”

VinnyDaCat, (edited )

Can’t tell if you’re being ingenuine intentionally or just misunderstanding.

This is far from a middle path. This is the path of aggressively standing between Russia and Ukraine. No where did I ever say that I blame Ukraine for fighting back either. They’re doing what is necessary, but the fighting shouldn’t have ever been necessary if other countries from around the world were willing to put their troops down and tell Russia no.

As for Putin and the nukes, I really don’t get it. It’s always going to be this way with Russia. Are you just going to let them take more and more? If Russia invades the rest of Europe are they just not going to fight back because Putin has the capacity to nuke them? At some point there will be a confrontation between Russia and other countries from the world. How much are people going to be willing to give up out of fear that nuclear weapons will be used?

blazeknave,

Understood. I’m never going to do that, unless I’m overtly using sarcasm, so apologies for appearing to be provocative for the sake of it.

I probably misread your previous comment, now that I’m seeing you elaborate. I apologize for the vitriol, ending Russian genocide and terrorism of the free world is emotional for me.

We pretty much agree. That tone is just very apologist IMHO. Like abuse victim language - “look, you’re right, wife, it sucks I’m attacking you but if everyone else didn’t put me in this situation, I wouldn’t be slapping you around” - it’s an extreme example for simplicity but I hope it’s not such a stretch that my point is lost.

eardon,

No shit.

FunkPhenomenon,

prepare to lose even more territory then.

nucleative,

It’s Zelenskyy’s job to say that. But if he doesn’t get it he’ll be in a tough situation with his troops assuming he tries to backpedal that and encourage them to keep fighting.

I don’t understand why Europe isn’t more involved in shutting this situation down. It’s your goddamn borders at risk if this smoldering fire isn’t put out.

Buelldozer, (edited )
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

Europe CANT do more. They don’t have the military strength due to perpetual underfunding. It’s precisely what every US President since Bill Clinton has been bitching about. The wolf is at the door and they’re every bit as unprepared as has been claimed for the last 30 years.

BestBouclettes,

We’ve relied too heavily on NATO and the US and it’s biting is in the ass right now. A European army would be great in this exact kind of situation. But then everyone in Europe will be “but muh sovereignty”, like Europe didn’t do in 50 years what people tried to do for centuries, which is preventing us from killing each other.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Europe has a huge army they are just not using it befause Russia has nukes.

BestBouclettes,

Every European country has its own army but there are no central command center, just a few countries are cooperating with each other but that’s about it I believe. And with Brexit, only France is nuclear capable now.

maynarkh,

There is, and the EU has participated in over a dozen conflicts under its own flag. There is no standing army, but there are EU Battlegroups.

sturmblast,

Who is “we” in this context?

Buelldozer,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

We’ve relied too heavily on NATO and the US and it’s biting is in the ass right now.

Europe has a long term problem with it’s reliance on the US that I haven’t heard discussed. The demographics of the United States are shifting away from people of European background due to immigration from South America and Asia. Over the next 50ish years support from the US will not be a given because so many of the people simply won’t have the cultural ties.

Why would masses of people whose backgrounds are from Venezuela, Vietnam, Sudan, or Mexico want to send billions of dollars of military aid, or enter a war, on the European continent?

ManniSturgis,

Yup, we have mostly tried to befriend Russia, even after they took the Crimea. Hell, there are right wing parties who’d love to buy russian gas again even now.

sturmblast,

The American GOP is basically 100% pro Russia these days. Which is very concerning.

wintermute_oregon, (edited )

He’s not joking. They need more ammo but the truth is the United States can’t produce it fast enough.

Europe is doing a lot but they don’t want to risk nuclear war for Ukraine.

Really this showed nato can’t sustain long term military operations without running out of ammo. I’m pro-military but damn , I didn’t realize how little we could produce.

sturmblast,

Well, I mean I’m not 100% sure, but I would bet that the USA has more ammunition than anyone else on the planet. We are just hoarding it.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

you do realize that Nato is not at war, right?

I’m not saying Europe shouldn’t do more, but at the moment we provide Ukraine with ammunition and equipment while we also have to make sure that our own forces have enough for a possible war with russia.

If this would be an actual war, Russia would loose it in a few weeks, no need for a long time military operation…

wintermute_oregon,

Woosh. You seemed to have missed what I said trying to push your own agenda.

We blew through years of stockpiled ammo in under a year and can’t produce enough to sustain one war.

The United States use to have a policy of 2.5 wars at a time. We changed it to two I believe and we can’t even handle one.

And no Russia wouldn’t lose in a couple of weeks. It took a months for us to take Iraq or Afghanistan.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

It took a months for us to take Iraq or Afghanistan.

Yep they are also much more capable than the Russians. Remind me, how many days does the three days to Kyiv war now last? Also the Afghanistan beat the fucking Russians, to there is that.

wintermute_oregon,

That’s naive to think the Iraqi army is more capable than the Russian army.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

is it though?

wintermute_oregon, (edited )

Yes. The two are not comparable. Russia has a lot more equipment and people than Iraq. They also have nuclear weapons and a large chemical arsenal. Also the size of Russia is immense. Just getting to Moscow would take weeks and securing all of Russia months.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

hopefully we will never see that but I highly doubt that Russia has a chance against the full force of the NATO.

wintermute_oregon,

I’ve always been shocked the people haven’t kicked out Putin at this point. Invading Ukraine wasn’t a popular decision and it hasn’t went well.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

Because they have no problem with him, at least the majority.

Putin is just a symptom not the cause, this country has degenerated beyond any saving in my opinion and it is that way since decades.

maynarkh,

Truth is that Russia had more time to prepare and the USSR stockpile to fall back on. They also do heavily rely on unguided shell artillery because of the Soviet heritage, as does Ukraine, which makes it the weapon of choice. So Russia can outpace the West in this one item, dumb artillery shells, for a year.

Europe and the US are ramping up production, and are scheduled to outpace Russia by the end of the year. The truth is, the West was not preparing to fight this war, it was preparing to fight a war where it has overwhelming air superiority, but air capabilities take a ton of time to build with training pilots and whatnot.

Point is, Russia has this year to push this edge as much as possible, if nothing else changes, 2025 will be heavily stacked against them. That said, shit can happen, like with the US election, but on their side as well - remember Prigozhin?

wintermute_oregon,

Europe and the US are ramping up production, and are scheduled to outpace Russia by the end of the year

Where did you see that at? America won’t even get close for several years.

maynarkh,

This guy has sources and seems competent and well-regarded. He also is not a click-grabbing clickbaity rah-rah Ukraine person.

TL;DW seems to be (correct me if I’m reading it wrong here):

  • Russia has a higher production number on their main calibre dumb artillery shells than the West since they had factories where they just had to ramp up production by extending shifts in their existing plants
  • The West was not prepared for this kind of war, so they don’t manufacture main calibre dumb artillery shells at this rate, as their doctrine does not prescribe their use, they prefer air superiority tactics
  • However, both the EU and the US are ramping up main calibre shell production with each scheduled to be where Russia is at now in 18 months (if combined, they will surpass it in 12)
  • In the meantime the Czech have managed to get together a sizeable stop-gap shipment by buying from the open market using joint EU funds
  • Also, Russia has a serious problem with artillery, with the actual cannons, as their arsenal seems to be transforming from a mostly mobile self-propelled one to one dominated by towed units, with alarmingly many WWII D-10 guns, which have an effective range of 10km with very bad accuracy
  • Finally, even though Russia is producing a lot of shells, they are using even more, with them saying they need 4 million per year to sustain what they are doing now, but only producing 1.5 million per year, with a 3 million shell stockpile

All that says that Russia has a head start on shell production and stockpiles, but it’s getting used up, while the Ukrainians need to hold on, and if both the EU and the US come through, they will be in a shell advantage by this time next year, if either the US or the EU loses political will (khm Trump), they will still be okay by end of next year-ish. On the other side, victories like Avdiivka are not sustainable for Russia either, neither manpower nor production-wise, but they can get a lot of support from China, so that may tilt stuff their way. It’s still all up in the air.

venusaur, (edited )
@venusaur@lemmy.world avatar

How long until either Hamas or Russia decides to go for the snake’s head?

EDIT: why the downvotes? Y’all too young to remember 9/11?

00x0xx,

Russia’s new strategy is to take it slow. Hence why they just created two new army for defense in Ukraine. They aren’t looking to risk trying to finish this quickly.

Corkyskog,

Makes complete sense. If they get Trump soon then all support will be pulled from Ukraine, possibly US Removal from NATO, and if they are super lucky they might even get US intelligence passed on to help them…

Honytawk,

I hope quickly, so the world can finally rest easy when Putin is dead.

venusaur,
@venusaur@lemmy.world avatar

They be teasing us with the news he had cancer a while back

ghostdoggtv,

Republicans are going to cost this country and theirs fucking everything . Whatever happens to Ukraine I hope the GOP receives 10 fold

eardon,

Wait a minute. Ukraine never had a chance of winning without foreign troops on the ground.

Did you also think they had a chance at taking back Crimea?

PatFussy,

The hard truth is it doesn’t matter how much aid we send, Ukraine is in a losing position. They need more than aid to win and that’s the problem

Pilferjinx,

The war could have ended if we gave Ukraine all the weapons it needed. We just gave them enough, not to win, but rather, not to lose in fear russian escalation (whatever that means). Russia has declared it’s at war with NATO and we’re just pussyfooting around and not taking it seriously.

eardon, (edited )

No it couldn’t have and it’s sad you’re going to go through life thinking otherwise.

Let me say this louder for the people in the back: Ukraine has no chance of winning without foreign troops on the ground.

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

Yep the problem is that people don’t play enough Age of Empires. Basically the worst thing you can do in that game is to send a knight to the enemy’s base, wait a bit, then send another knight, wait, send next one, … etc. One by one each of the knights dies without achieving anything because he will be massively outnumbered. The correct thing to do is to muster a group of the knights and then send them all at once. That way you will have the advantage and have an actual chance of winning.

Going back to the real world Ukraine “The West” is almost comically stupid. They are arguing over how much help should be sent to Ukraine and always sending just enough to get by but not enough to give Ukraine an advantage. Instead of spending a lot of money during a short period of time to actually get some results, “The West” decided to slowly throw away money in the infinite pit of frozen conflict.

The way I, the self proclaimed internet war expert, see it, there are 3 possible solutions for “The West” to the Ukraine problem.

  1. Decide to send a lot of money to flip the tides. (that won’t happen)
  2. Decide that they aren’t stupid to feed an endless war and decide to exchange half of Ukraine’s territory for Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Kinda crap but honestly better than the 3rd option.
  3. A nothing burger. AKA doing what they are doing right now. The optimistic vision is that over the next decade “The West” will get rich enough that even with these small scraps here and there Ukraine will be able to win in the end. The realistic one is that the scraps won’t be enough and Ukraine will slowly but surely lose territory, ending with some kind of crap treaty including Ukraine both losing a lot of territory and not being in NATO. “a lose-lose”
Pilferjinx,

Ukraine is in a bad position. They’re currently being out produced, out funded, out maneuvered, and out manned. The time for an offensive was before the Russians dug in. I don’t know what Ukraine can do now outside of direct foreign confrontation and engagement. But that won’t happen until Ukraine is essentially lost, if it does happen at all.

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

imo the time for offensive was never. The offensive should happen “naturally”. If they had enough resources, they would be slowly pushing Russia back just like they are being pushed back currently. The whole “spring offensive” was just as dumb as Russian plan to conquer Kiev in 5 days or whatever insanity they had in mind.

Pilferjinx,

Agreed, but staging operations to open up an offensive haven’t been going well either. There’s been some success with downing some jets and ships but it’s not nearly enough to punch big enough holes in the Russian defenses. The kerch bridge would be a fantastic win if Ukraine can get anywhere near it.

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

That comes down to the “they are being out-everything” from your earlier comment. Europe needs to start spending much more money on the war, but that wouldn’t be popular amongst the Europeans and therefore won’t happen, sadly.

cyd,

The most likely best case scenario is a frozen conflict. But Zelensky doesn’t want this because such an outcome would call into question everything he did politically up to now. As for Putin, I’m not sure.

I think there’s a widespread implicit hope among Western policy makers that if they keep propping Ukraine up, and get Ukrainians to hold out long enough, Russia will suffer a sudden internal collapse and be forced to withdraw. That may be, but it seems equally (more?) probable that Ukraine will be the one that suffers a collapse.

Slotos,

There are no frozen conflicts with Russia.

fuckingkangaroos,

Ukrainians want to defend their homes. Zelensky has support to continue fighting off the invasion.

cyd,

I hope so, they’re in it for the long haul. The Vietnamese basically sacrificed two generations to beat back the US; Ukraine will need a similar level of long term commitment. The recent wobbling over mobilization is not a good sign in this respect.

eardon,

Yes, it’s a hard truth and those indoctrinated by propaganda refuse to realize it.

Anyone who acknowledges reality in this situation is a ‘tankie’. That’s how bad the tribalism has gotten among these idiots.

Honytawk,

Well, it is either sending Ukraine some weapons, or WW3.

I’d go with the former.

eardon,

No it’s not and I feel sorry for you if you believe that without any doubt.

Honytawk,

What other option is there?

Let Ukraine loose its sovereignty? To let them be absorbed into a country they want no part of?

That would just feed the insatiable hunger of Putin, and they would perform yet an other “military training exercise” in the next country. And then the next until there is nothing left than to attack NATO countries, which brings us back to to my second outcome.

The only peaceful option can only be chosen by Putin, by just pulling their invasion forces out. Anything we throw at them is self inflicted at this point.

Kedly,

Nah, its the sucking Russia off that makes you a Tankie

athos77,

We gave the Republicans a version with everyone they asked for, and they still voted against it.

WillySpreadum,
@WillySpreadum@lemmy.world avatar

Republicans never argue in good faith, and bending over backwards to give them what they want just shows them they can demand even worse terms next time.

wintermute_oregon,

We? You are a senator ?

TexMexBazooka,

Hush and go back to /c/conservative

shadearg,
@shadearg@lemmy.world avatar

Sounds like a Voluntarist espousing Collectivism.

Ain’t seen one in the wild for a while. Odd sovcit folk.

gravitas_deficiency,

As an American, it is infuriating and heartbreaking to see these psychotic dipshits in Congress actively working to consign an entire fucking country of 60 million people who WANT to integrate more closely with the US and Europe to being one of Putin’s puppet states.

I sincerely hope the GOP either lets this go through or loses power in the next couple weeks. Both outcomes are actually realistic possibilities at this point.

eardon,

Ukraine can’t win without foreign troops on the ground.

Any additional aid is a sunk cost if you think Ukraine can defend itself or take back lost territory.

The only reason we send aid to Ukraine is to weaken Russia and strengthen the MIC.

nomous,

Ukraine can’t win without foreign troops on the ground.

What’re you basing this on? What’s your warfighting experience?

machineLearner,

deleted_by_author

    •
    nomous,

    I attended SAW for a minute so a good bit more than yours. You’re just saying things on the internet, you don’t have a clue.

    rbesfe,

    If NATO didn’t exist Putin would have started with the Baltics

    eardon,

    You wouldn’t be asking this if I said the same thing about Russia 😬

    Just shows how much you’ve succumbed to propaganda.

    nomous,

    It would be a completely different statement then so my response would likely be different, no shit. I’d still be curious if you were basing your statement on anything or if you were just talking out of your ass.

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