Most signs indicate that UA is taking heavy losses while RUS occasionally cedes (and then often takes back) territory. This has been the pattern of the war. In addition, UA military statements are not generally credible, so always take a skeptical eye to these things - particularly from an English-language tabloid uncritically repeating MoD propaganda.
The overall "pattern of the war" is that Russia took a bunch of Ukrainian territory early on, and then has spent the past year having its meat ground and losing big chunks of occupied territory back to the Ukrainians again. Bakhmut has been notable because it was an exception to this overall pattern. We may now be seeing the pattern reassert itself there, though.
That is the common narrative among Americans and Redditors, but it is, as to be expected, based on an uncritical acceptance of numbers and stories from untrustworthy sources, sources with an obvious interest in keeping support for the sending weapons and other military support to UA. This post, for example, coming from Pravda UA and just passing along the message from the MoD. No critical look at any of it from liberals, just cheerleading based on vibes.
Yeah, unfortunately the .ml in the TLD of the biggest Lemmy instance is not at all coincidental. On the other hand, it seems that a huge proportion of migrant Redditors have a preference for neutral servers with more Libertarian approaches to administration like Beehaw. At least Lemmy itself is FOSS.
The war in general of course. It has been a low-information cheerleading session since the beginning, with a rapid normalization of snufg films and the dehumanization of Russians.
A video of someone getting killed by a shark in Egypt has been making the rounds. It's horrible and I do not recommend watching it. But it's incredibly easy to find popular comment chains making jokes or even rejoicing in the death, as the victim was Russian.
Americans did not suddenly acquire basic media literacy skills, let alone embrace media criticism. The same jingoistic fervor used to incite a war of aggression in Iraq is back in a slightly different flavor. This time, the consent that must be manufactured is support for collective punishment against Russia and indefinite military support for Ukraine, hence the dehumanization of "orcs" and the rah-rah gullible acceptance of "we could win!" narratives that depend on positive news about UA actions and negative news about RUS actions.
I oppose dehumanization in all its forms, and despite being Ukrainian I have always been mindful of the humanity in this war.
With that said, the overwhelming majority of the "orc" comments that I've seen are directed not towards Russian civilians, but towards Russian combatants. Indeed, on that note Russians have been calling Ukrainians much worse things from day 1 on Russian social media, so if anyone is being dehumanized (and this is coming someone who reads Russian better than Ukrainian) I'd say it's more so Ukrainians by the Russian side, but I digress.
Name calling aside, I think it's incredibly dishonest to term the rooting and supporting for Ukraine as "jingoism" when that word describes what has been happening in Russian society for the past year far more appropriately. The American invasion of Iraq was bad and jingoist rhetoric was used to justify it, yes, but the exact same has been happening in Russia to a far more extreme degree during this war.
How can you ignore that while denouncing mere name-calling on social media and passive support in the war from the side of the West?
The "orc" comments began with Ukrainian fascists' dehumanization of Chechens, which included but was not limited to people in the Russian military. This became popular in Western communities around the same time as the islamophobic pork fat bullet-dipping incident that was endorsed by the UA MoD. It spread to include all Russians, though it is used primarily by the most vehement Russophobes and simply tolerated by your average cheerleading liberal.
Name calling aside, I think it’s incredibly dishonest to term the rooting and supporting for Ukraine as “jingoism” when that word describes what has been happening in Russian society for the past year far more appropriately.
This is a form of absurd binary thinking. I am not required to "both sides" my criticisms in order to be honest, particularly when what I am criticizing is the dominant and uncritically accepted narrative, including what this post - and the vast majority of comments rezoonding to it - is literally an example of.
If it makes you happy, okay cool Russia is also jingoistic. Now answer me this: do you see any Russian nationalist statements in these threads?
The American invasion of Iraq was bad and jingoist rhetoric was used to justify it, yes, but the exact same has been happening in Russia to a far more extreme degree during this war.
I'm describing a repeated phenomenon in the exact same society to people who absolutely don't think of it that way. American collective consciousness is very poor at learning past lessons and applying them to current events. One reason is that they don't teach this stuff in school.
Please feel free to make this case to any Russians here that think their nationalism isn't comparable to bad examples of prior Russian nationalism.
How can you ignore that while denouncing mere name-calling on social media and passive support in the war from the side of the West?
You said you oppose dehumanization, but here you are minimizing to call it mere name-calling.
I think this would be the appropriate time to point out that Russia can stop this war at any time by leaving, whereas Ukraine can only stop it by convincing Russia to leave. They already tried concessions, and that didn’t work.
And the rest of the world can’t stop the war at all, it can only act to prolong it or favor one side or the other.
This seems like a false dichotomy, Ukraine can surrender as well, as unpopular as it would be. Ukraine has been following the lead of the US, even before the invasion. This has lead them away from any negotiations, right to where they are today.
Unpopular? That's the word you'd use to describe Ukraine surrendering? Just "unpopular"? Putin rejected the (ostensibly) real goal of Ukraine being barred from NATO before the war even started in order to seek out deeper goals and political control. Then he ran the independence referenda in the Russian-army-occupied settlements, that claimed "independence" over the entire regions (a large chunk of which Russia didn't even control).
Those referenda are currently a part of Putin's non-negotiables for a peace deal. So then why would you ever characterise it as Ukraine bringing it on themselves? That they're the ones who aren't being serious about negotiations? Are they "prolonging" the war for fun? I hope you don't actually buy this and it's just a contrarian bit.
They tried surrendering to Russia in 2014 and it only got them 8 years of peace before Russia invaded again. How long do you think it'd take next time, 6 years? 4 years?
That is the common narrative among Americans and Redditors
And also reality. Or does Russia still secretly occupy Kherson and Kharkiv? Did they only pretend to launch a major mobilization of new troops and call up prisoners to fill the ranks?
The day-to-day changes of the control map are less clear, especially now that there's major operational security around the counteroffensive, but I'm speaking of the overall "pattern of the war" here.
Kherson and Kharkiv are both examples of Russia giving up territory with minimal losses. Kherson was a very famous preemptive withdrawal, with Russia going back on its statements that it would protect the people there. I feel bad for the people there who believed it and tried to build back a functioning society, as they were then subjected to UA's fascistic extremist militants that have wide berth to determine a very low bar for being a "collaborator".
Control maps don't mean much by themselves. A party taking a large strip of mud gets very different media treatment depending on who you read and which party gained it.
You raise really good points, but I’m also not seeing much information to support the idea that Russia is doing well in the conflict. It looks like the Ukrainian outlets are more reliable than the Russian ones, judging by how Ukraine actually is taking back territory and Russians are losing it.
I think that there’s a significant amount of propaganda and distortion so the West keeps funneling equipment to Ukraine. I also think that the equipment Ukraine is getting is doing better than most people have predicted.
The primary Ukrainian challenge (just an armchair opinion) in this conflict, and particularly with counter offenses, is going to be the preservation of life while still trying to push Russia out. They simply have such a population disadvantage that Russia can afford a massive variety of stupid mistakes and still have advantage. Normally in war you could counter this with more guerilla, more lopsided, more 'underhanded' (what does that even mean in a war where Russia is committing atrocities daily) tactics. But I have a feeling a ton of the weapons and intel being supplied to Ukraine comes with stipulations that restrict almost all of these options.
I wish nothing but the best for them, I hope they can protect their country and their people.
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