Russia isn't just fighting Ukraine. They are fighting the money, military aid and resources of the USA and many countries of the world.

Took 20 years of fighting before the U.S lost to the Taliban in Afghanistan

I believe you.

The (almost) daily frontline changes reports from Defense Politics Asia give a good impression of what is happening at the front.

https://www.youtube.com/@DefensePoliticsAsia/videos

I recently watched an interview of a Russian Trainer that had been at the front for 6 months prior to becoming a trainer. He predicted best case scenario the war goes another two years. This drone warfare is a new ball game. We always fight the last war when making predictions.

It's interesting to read American perspectives, even if I often can't explain how they arrive at these perspectives.

Kiev is a sacred place for Putin, one he absolutely does not want to destroy, as he sees Kyiv and Kievan Rus' as the nucleus of Russian history. He has emphasized this repeatedly in the past.

The Russians' declared war aim is to conquer the four oblasts that have been declared Russian territory: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.

And even then, the Russian government offered Trump a compromise, in which the parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts that lie to the right (west) of the Dnieper could remain Ukrainian.

He presumably offered this compromise because these territories across the Dnieper would be difficult to conquer and later difficult to hold in the event of a Ukrainian counterattack.
I suspect that he is in exchange calling for security zones in the Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts, along the Russian border.


Luhansk has already been almost completely captured, except for two small areas that no longer contain any villages.

The southern part of Donetsk is also completely occupied. The border into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has already been crossed here.

To the northwest of Donetsk, the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk metropolitan area remains in Ukrainian hands. The Russians are gradually encircling it.

Of Kherson Oblast the entire area to the left (east) of the Dnieper River is in Russian hands.

In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the Russians are slowly advancing toward the city of Zaporizhzhia, which lies directly on the Dnieper River. Currently, fighting is taking place in Stepnohirsk, about 20 km from Zaporizhzhia.

If these war aims are eventually achieved, but Ukraine does not give up and continues to fight, Russia will probably continue the war by conquering more territories east of the Dnieper, since the Dnieper represents a defensive line that Russia could hold for a very long time, even if no agreement is reached between the two states.

Do drones and planes fly over rivers ?

It is one thing to bomb the other side.
But to take it, you have to cross, go in with your infantry and than supply your troops over there.
This has often been a costly military undertaking in the past. Now, in the age of drone swarms, it is an even deeper level of (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman).

I have not changed my mind. I dont care if Russia takes back Ukraine.

To me if you send young men to War first you declare war. Then you destroy the country you declared war against. You dont worry about civilians. You burn crops, shoot livestock, burn cities, destroy infrastructure like water supplies, energy production, rail lines, airfields. You quit when the survivors dont want to fight anymore.

Ukraine is not worth that to me. Was a part of Russia for a long time.

War for other peoples money does not interest me.

^^^^^^
In answer to your question;
What we now call Ukraine was Russia from 1658 until the fall of the Tzar in 1917. People in what we call Ukraine declared themselves independant in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution, the Bolsheviks put a quick end to that rebellion. In 1921 Lenin created the "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic", essentially just part of the USSR.

So yes, the Ukraine was Russia from about 1660 until 1990, when the USSR broke up; only 330 years.

THIS

Should the British try to reclaim us?

Maybe they want Alaska back next, saying we didn't pay enough or who we paid doesn't count.

Russia is in the wrong imo, and the day Putin's airplane does a nosedive will be a good day for the world, again imo.

If Britain or Russia attacks us of course it is cause for war. They have not. Ukraine needs to defend Ukraine if they want independence

I have had a belly full of wars that last decades with no resolution

This is only partly true, and mainly for the eastern part of present-day Ukraine.
Below the development of national borders in Europe, year by year.
The westernmost part of present-day Ukraine has never been Russian.

And as you write, Ukraine was first established as a state in 1918.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the Central Executive Committee of Soviet Ukraine was founded in Kharkiv. On December 17, 2017, it proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic of the Soviets, an autonomous republic within Soviet Russia. In March 1918, it declared itself an independent state.
In 1920, this state was dissolved again and incorporated into Soviet Russia as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

It was only in 1991, with the end of the Soviet Union, that Ukraine emerged as an independent state in its current form and size.

^^^^^^
I guess that's sort of my point, Ukraine never really was a county until very recently. Some maps will show western Ukraine as part of Poland. You can pick and chose your dates in order to argue about any point on the subject, however, historically, I think Russia has a pretty good claim to the eastern part of the Ukraine.

That was interesting, thanks for posting that. I tried to watch it twice but was always looking at the wrong place......jk

What Putin is demanding is essentially the part located east of the Dnieper River of what was once Novorossiya (New Russia) in the Russian Empire. This region is, or was, predominantly populated by ethnic Russians until the outbreak of the war.

After the regime change in 2014, the people there refused to support a centralized state dominated by Western Ukraine and demanded a federal state similar to the United States or Germany. When the Western Ukrainians refused, secessionist movements arose.

My proposal would be to cede this part to Russia to end the war and offer the population on both sides a resettlement and property exchange program so that everyone can settle on the side under whose rule they wish to live in the future.


https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurussland#/media/Datei:New_Russia_on_territory_of_Ukraine.PNG

A Video about Putins offer/demands, with map:

(Start at about 10:10 min)

https://youtu.be/N5n88U1h1Hw?t=610

Doesn't that essentially give Putin everything that he's demanding?