https://www.politico.eu/article/ukra...se-war-russia/
Quote:
Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer. In a pre-offensive pummeling — stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south — Russia’s missile and drone strikes have widely surged in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will mount its major push.
And according to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny — the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February — the military picture is grim.
The officers said there’s a great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive. Moreover, thanks to a much greater weight in numbers and the guided aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now, Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” they said.
They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers,” one of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO.
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I think that no matter what the West decides and does now, it no longer makes a decisive difference.The show has essentially run. What happens now is buying time to get oneself mentally arranged with the sobering outcome.
Europe better prepares much much more for war. It will come, and Putin knows NATO can only grow stronger again from now on. Thus he knows it is in his interest to attack NATO as soon as he can.
What irks me is that with more determination and quickness shown, this outcome had a fair chance to get avoided. Trump's former Republicans, Germany and France shall be cursed most. Others like Italy, Greece and Spain did not shine as well. Turkey's role is murky at best. And then Hungary...
The alternative would have been to say: "Ukraine is not NATO territory, so we completely stay out of it." Techncially correct, practically a strategic dud.