Zelenskyy reaffirms his refusal to cede land to Russia as he rallies European support
apnews.com
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reaffirmed his refusal to cede territory, resisting U.S. pressure for compromise with Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reaffimed his firm refusal to cede any territory, resisting U.S. pressure for a painful compromise with Russia as he continued to rally European support for Ukraine.

“Undoubtedly, Russia insists for us to give up territories. We, clearly, don’t want to give up anything. That’s what we are fighting for,” Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp chat late Monday in which he answered reporters’ questions.

“Do we consider ceding any territories? According to the law we don’t have such right. According to Ukraine’s law, our constitution, international law, and to be frank, we don’t have a moral right either.”

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    161·
    1 day ago

    You can go look up the movement of the front over the course of the war. To even out the numbers, we’d have to roughly triple the number of shells we send to the front (ignoring troops for now). That would likely bring the war to a stand still. To start reversing the movement at the same rate we’d likely have to triple it again. So cocktail napkin math says that if we actually want to revert back to pre-invasion borders, we’d have to increase expenditures by around 10x and sustain that for the next 3 years.

    I disagree here with this for two reasons.

    First Ukraine’s artillery shell production and transition into nato calibers of 105mm and 155mm is increasing, and the strategic relation of power balance between Russian and Ukrainian artillery is actively changing. This isn’t static, Ukraine is quickly developing an advantage here especially when you consider efficiency of resources applied to the front.

    Second, Russian air defenses are collapsing, Ukraine is hammering them day in day out and there is no way Russia can replace these air defense radars and missile launchers along with sufficiently trained crew at a high enough rate to sustain this current situation. Russia is HUGE there is an incredible amount of territory that must be covered with air defense. I would not call the current situation a simple battle of attrition right now, Russia is facing an existential collapse of their war machine if their air defenses decisively collapse in too many areas. I am not suggesting the likelihood is high at the moment but the probability of it happening is meaningfully increasing every day.

    I am not trying to reject all of your points, but I think the aspects I have brought up have to be taken into consideration. Ukraine will have the capacity to domestically produce and maintain L119 105mm howitzers, 155mm bohdana production has finally begun to hit stride as well, these are strategic leaps forward in terms of practical infantry fighting power and I find conversations tend to ignore these non-flashy but quite meaningful transformations that have happened over the past year or two for the Ukrainian military. They make this moment of Russia’s faltering general offensive a far more fragile position than people generally recognize. This isn’t to say Ukraine isn’t in a fragile position itself of course. What I am saying is I wouldn’t expect the status quo to necessarily continue indefinitely here, it will for some time and then all of a sudden it abruptly won’t.

    • nednobbins@lemmy.zipEnglish
      46·
      1 day ago

      It’s tricky to find current numbers on artillery production. The most reliable numbers I could find are about a year old and all cite a 3:1 advantage for the Russians.

      Do you have sources on what the ratio is more recently?

      We like to believe that Russian air defenses are collapsing but do we even know this? We know that some facilities have been destroyed but how many did they have in the first place? What can Ukraine do to exploit a gap in air defenses? Traditionally, air defenses are there to stop enemy bombers but that only matters if the enemy has bombers.

      War is difficult. It takes much more than a bunch of people standing around saying, “I support XYZ.” It takes a huge amount of resources and involves a lot of dead people.

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        6·
        1 day ago

        What can Ukraine do to exploit a gap in air defenses?

        …Have you not been paying attention to the Ukraine’s campaign of long range strikes utilizing missiles and drones?

        In terms of shell ratios, I am less interested in trying to find precise numbers on that since it is an incredibly difficult process to accurately do for one army much less two, but also I am not sure it is necessarily relevant in any absolute sense since Ukraine and Russia utilize their artillery so differently.

        In terms of hard facts that have changed well here you go:

        https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-uk-agree-on-joint-artillery-production/

        https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-ramps-up-bohdana-howitzer-production-to-40-systems-per-month/

        These two changes alone significantly change the strategic power balance between Ukraine’s military and Russia’s military as the L119 is unquestionably the best mass production battle tested towed light infantry support howitzer ever made and the bohdana in towed and self propelled forms is a world class 155mm howitzer that is easily compatible with a global constellation of militaries who may increase military aid at any point.

        • nednobbins@lemmy.zipEnglish
          43·
          21 hours ago

          I have been paying attention to Ukraines missile and drone programs.

          Missiles and drones are both very effective but neither of them is a replacement for heavy bombing and Russia still makes more missiles than Ukraine does.

          Unfortunately shell ratios are an important detail. That’s why the serious policy publications (like FP) spend so much time trying to advocate for increased production.