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Notes -
This is nothing compared to other Ukrainian public relation efforts.
First there was picking American transgender woman as official spokesperson for Ukrainian army, who then went on unhinged rant threatening to kill "Russian propagandists" all over the world.
(speaking in English, not Russian, so it is clear that it were not Russians in Russia who were target of this threat)
This speech is there, it is something you will hear from mouth of cartoon Evil Mastermind(TM) in corny B movie, just before Action Hero(TM) storms in and drops the villain into his/her/their/zir/xir own shark tank.
Someone in charge then noticed this does not make Ukraine look exactly like Avengers team and decided to suspend Cirillo.
So sanity prevailed and all will be good (optics) from now?
Well, Zelensky just decided to make honorary "ambassador of Ukraine", of all people, Marina Abramovic, world famous performance artist.
It sounds like 4chan fake news prank, but it is real, reported by mainstream media(and then vanishing from their pages).
Ukraine knows well what it is doing, Ukraine tries hard to signal it is on the right side and win hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds of people who matter, not yours.
edit: links
Given how hard the US right is now pulling for "1. feed Ukraine to Putin 2. ???? 3. PROFIT!" - it's hard to blame Zelensky for betting on the other side. He has people's lives at stake. If sucking up to whatever Western weirdo is what helps to get weapons to save a thousand of Ukrainian lives - worth it thousand times over. I mean, the US red tribe can't be both "fuck all those guys over the border" and then be wondering "why those guys over the border suck up to Democrats?!" Because that's their only option, if the right says upfront they want nothing to do with it. Ukraine is toast without Western help, they just don't have the resources to fight Putin alone, especially given they can't afford to get a million of their own killed people like Putin can. So yes, sometimes it would look stupid. Sometimes it will be stupid - desperate people don't always look very attractive.
This is a bit off topic, but as a realist I really wonder at the neocon thinking here. I'm asking you since you are vocal about your beliefs, but really anyone jumping into this question would be fine.
Assume you are an average Ukrainian. For reference that is someone probably working Ukraine's most common job, a factory worker, making the Ukrainian median salary of 600usd a month. If you live in the South from Odessa to Dontesk, or the east from Donetsk to Kharkiv than you more than likely already speak Russian, especially if you are in a city. You've lived in a country that was a Soviet territory, then a Russian puppet state, and now a western puppet state. What would most likely happen to you in the following scenarios:
-Russia invaded and the Ukrainian leadership completely capitulated and the war was over before it even started.
-Russia invades and you fight back, the west is initially supportive but pulls its support when it becomes clear the war has become one of attrition and there is no path to victory. You lose the war a couple years later, sometime in 2024-25. (current timeline)
-Russia invades and you fight back, the west gives you whatever support you want, the war drags on for years and years as more and more are sent to a front increasingly supplied by more modern and deadly weapons systems.
To me if I'm the average Ukrainian I prefer scenario 1. I probably still have a pretty below average life, maybe I keep a good mindset about it, maybe alcohol is cheap enough it doesn't matter. I don't die though, no conscription, and as long as I'm not part of the ultra nationalist movement I'm unlikely to see much of a difference, there is a new set of corrupt officials to bribe here and there to get through daily life, but life is mostly the same. At worst there is a major uptick in terrorist attacks as ultra nationalists shift to insurgency type tactics. Though without western support it's not clear how long these would last.
Since I anticipate you will take issue with the framing and suggest a hypothetical where Ukraine gets all the aid it wants and then wins and takes back all it's territory and for some reason Russia decides to never look west again... What wonder weapon would result in this actually happening? Even if we gave them nukes that seems to just result in a stalemate, since if Ukraine nuked Crimea* or Moscow, surely Russia would make sure Kiev no longer existed. In fact given the sheer number of nukes Russia has it might make sure most of Western Europe and the US no longer exist as well. Other than that there doesn't seem to be any conventional weapon that doesn't simply result in more escalation. They are already scraping the bottom of the barrel for conscripts and are at a serious population disadvantage. Sometimes surrender is the better move and the one that saves more lives, if it didn't and everyone that surrendered instantly died than it really wouldn't exist as an option.
You left out (4). The west gives you proper weapons and you win the war. 30 years later your children are richer than England.
This has happened before. Poland is on path to be wealthier than England in 10 years. The average dude might already be there.
Your preferred option sounds like I’ll accept be a drunkard and survive my life. (4) provides the option to have a large successful family. The EV is much much higher.
Did you not read the rest? I want an explanation of how that is possible before we entertain it. Since there doesn't seem to be any weapon that would win the war for Ukraine and every new weapons system we supply further risks nuclear apocalypse.
We keep supplying Ukraine, Russia runs out of will, manpower, or materiel before Ukraine does.
Which doesn't mean they can't be supplied. "Putin might push the button" isn't an insta-win for Russia.
They have around 4x the population of Ukraine, for Russia to run out of manpower before Ukraine they would need to have a more than 4:1 loss ratio. I don't think even the Ukrainians are claiming that and they're been claiming absolutely absurd things the whole time.
The military production is up in the air, but so far Russian production appears to be up significantly from what it was prior to the war. They might've exhausted soviet stockpiles but they're producing 1k tanks per year, we're sending 31 Abrams. The US is trying to up artillery shell production but it costs 10x as much to make a single shell here. We've gone and strong armed basically every ally we have to provide them with their spares and even sent cluster munitions when that ran out.
It's just not realistic thinking. It's cynical as hell to boot, basically saying eventually enough Ukrainians will die that Ukraine will win.
The Ukrainian government has not generally reported losses but in December 2022 estimated 13k lost. Meanwhile the UK MoD figure for Russian casualty estimates from December 1st 2022 was 89k. If you were to accept their claims then by those loss ratios they could. Which isn't to say the claims are close to accurate but that it is not more absurd if taking those absurd claims as true to believe (or that they could claim) that they would win by attrition.
89k casualties does not mean anywhere close to 89k KIA though.
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