“What we have done in the case of Ukraine is encourage Ukraine to fight, but not given them the means to win,” the former chief of the defence staff told The Independent’s podcast World of Trouble.
Reflecting on Ukraine’s chances of success against Russia, he said: “My view is that they would not win.”
“Could not win, even with the right resources?” he was asked.
“No,” he replied.
Pressed further by The Independent, he was asked: “ Even with the right resources?”
“No, they haven’t got the manpower,” the former commando said.
[…]
“Unless we were to go in with them – which we won’t do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the Russians, by the way,” he said on World of Trouble.
“We’ve decided because it’s not an existential issue, we will not go to war. We are, you can argue – and I absolutely accept it – in some sort of hybrid war [with Russia]. But that’s not the same as a shooting war in which our soldiers are dying in large numbers.
“Despite our attraction for all they’ve achieved and our genuine affections for so many Ukrainians, I’m just still in this school that says this is not in our vital national interests.
“My instinct is that the best Ukraine can do, and you already see President Zelensky, who’s an inspirational leader … the best they can do is a sort of a score draw.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-defeat-david-richards-world-of-trouble-podcast-b2844349.html
Posted by shieeet
7 comments
I’m kind of surprised he would say this, considering it seems pretty shortsighted to not consider Ukraine in our vital interests. He acknowledges that we’re in a hybrid war with Russia — good, they’ve had the audacity to kill and terrorise with impunity on our own soil — but wouldn’t that make Ukraine all the more the staging post for a victory against Russia?
While the resource and manpower limitations are very real and he’s entirely right in saying that we’ve not given them anywhere near ample supplies to halt completely or reverse the Russian advance, it’s not to say everything’s rosy on the Russian front either. Their logistics are utterly suffering from Ukrainian strategic strikes. There’s videos of Russian soldiers drinking puddle water, cases of cannibalism because they aren’t getting basic provisions. Widespread reports of civilian fuel shortages, and growing discontent and protests against the war/Putin.
Logically, it’s a ticking clock for both Ukraine and Russia – whether the Russians will exhaust the Ukrainian manpower first and get that breakthrough of the defensive lines they’ve been aiming for, or whether Ukraine can hold out long enough for a victory on the home front. It’s a big maybe – but surely that would also mean an end to attacks against the UK and the West as well?
Which everyone with a critical eye should know.
There is so much propaganda pumped out. From inflated Russian casualties (which if they were true the war would be over by now) to sensationalized reports of the Russian economy collapsing.
Ukraine just doesn’t have the manpower to keep this going. Russia is in a war economy and can produce massive quantities of arms. They have a huge population to recruit from.
But if you only get your news from reddit you’d think Ukraine was grinding out a victory…
Russian losses are in excess of 10 to 1 against Ukraine, and the Russians have largely exhausted their Soviet stockpiles of hardware. From here on out, they have to rely on small batches of newly built equipment- which comes at a rate far too small to replace Russian attritional losses.
The Ukrainian strategy is pretty clear- destroy Russian fuel refineries and other vulnerable infrastructure, and exhaust the Russian military.
The Russian war economy relies on injecting cash into the economy at an unsustainable pace- once that hits its limit, the whole thing falls apart. With the Russian supply of Soviet hardware largely exhausted, the Russians don’t have a lot of cards left to play- they’re under political pressure to make gains, which allows Ukraine to inflict unsustainable losses onto the Russians.
Russia is already suffering from limited gas supplies in many parts of the country, despite an export ban on gasoline. The Ukrainian strikes are working.
The problem with analysis of Russian strengths by generals in western militaries is that they tend to discount the dysfunction and ineptitude of the Russian government. If Russia was governed by strategic minds that were getting accurate information, it could probably beat Ukraine. In reality, it is governed by a self taught “historian” who is constantly given incorrect information from his subordinates that he then uses to make further decisions.
> “We’ve decided because it’s not an existential issue, we will not go to war.
Yeah we could go to war with Russia and then it will become a very existential issue for all of us.
2022 – Ukraine cannot win, 40mil country has no manpower.
2023 – Ukraine cannot win, 40mil country has no manpower.
2024 – Ukraine cannot win, 40mil country has no manpower.
2025 – Ukraine cannot win, 40mil country has no manpower.
Referencing from article:“ They (Ukraine) haven’t got the manpower” To be honest, I would love to see woman being mobilised.. Don’t get me wrong I’m totally against war in any sense, but Im fed up with girls freely going in and out of the country and partying at bars while man are suffering and cannot leave the country and cannot visit back even to just see their parents is sickening me!!
Well as we said here, if you do the devil a favor he’ll repay you by taking you to hell…
That’s what happened to Ukraine, they were too naive to trust the west, to the average westerner (yes, I mean you 🫵) non western people aren’t really humans so they have no qualms about sacrificing Ukrainians to kill some Russians, Ukrainians are just another resource to exploit, now that the enterprise cost is too high it’s time to bail out and start the revisionist process, probably in 5 years the collective west would swear they were against the impossible war and they advised Ukraine to negotiate but madman Zalensky was too proud and he chose fight, all the destruction and death is on him, just like everyone in the west was against the war in Iraq, no you weren’t, you people cheered the invasion.
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