Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 408 points – Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid
businessinsider.com
  • President Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the US didn't send it more aid.
  • House Republicans have been stalling on a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine.
  • "It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country "will lose the war" against Russia if Congress does not act to send it more aid, Agence France-Presse reported.

"It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war," he said, per AFP.

For months, House Republicans have stalled on a bill containing $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, stipulating that it should also include increased funding for security at the US southern border.

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It's Zelenskyy's job to say that. But if he doesn't get it he'll be in a tough situation with his troops assuming he tries to backpedal that and encourage them to keep fighting.

I don't understand why Europe isn't more involved in shutting this situation down. It's your goddamn borders at risk if this smoldering fire isn't put out.

Europe CANT do more. They don’t have the military strength due to perpetual underfunding. It’s precisely what every US President since Bill Clinton has been bitching about. The wolf is at the door and they’re every bit as unprepared as has been claimed for the last 30 years.

We've relied too heavily on NATO and the US and it's biting is in the ass right now. A European army would be great in this exact kind of situation. But then everyone in Europe will be "but muh sovereignty", like Europe didn't do in 50 years what people tried to do for centuries, which is preventing us from killing each other.

We’ve relied too heavily on NATO and the US and it’s biting is in the ass right now.

Europe has a long term problem with it's reliance on the US that I haven't heard discussed. The demographics of the United States are shifting away from people of European background due to immigration from South America and Asia. Over the next 50ish years support from the US will not be a given because so many of the people simply won't have the cultural ties.

Why would masses of people whose backgrounds are from Venezuela, Vietnam, Sudan, or Mexico want to send billions of dollars of military aid, or enter a war, on the European continent?

Europe has a huge army they are just not using it befause Russia has nukes.

Every European country has its own army but there are no central command center, just a few countries are cooperating with each other but that's about it I believe. And with Brexit, only France is nuclear capable now.

There is, and the EU has participated in over a dozen conflicts under its own flag. There is no standing army, but there are EU Battlegroups.

Yup, we have mostly tried to befriend Russia, even after they took the Crimea. Hell, there are right wing parties who'd love to buy russian gas again even now.

The American GOP is basically 100% pro Russia these days. Which is very concerning.

He’s not joking. They need more ammo but the truth is the United States can’t produce it fast enough.

Europe is doing a lot but they don’t want to risk nuclear war for Ukraine.

Really this showed nato can’t sustain long term military operations without running out of ammo. I’m pro-military but damn , I didn’t realize how little we could produce.

you do realize that Nato is not at war, right?

I'm not saying Europe shouldn't do more, but at the moment we provide Ukraine with ammunition and equipment while we also have to make sure that our own forces have enough for a possible war with russia.

If this would be an actual war, Russia would loose it in a few weeks, no need for a long time military operation....

Woosh. You seemed to have missed what I said trying to push your own agenda.

We blew through years of stockpiled ammo in under a year and can’t produce enough to sustain one war.

The United States use to have a policy of 2.5 wars at a time. We changed it to two I believe and we can’t even handle one.

And no Russia wouldn’t lose in a couple of weeks. It took a months for us to take Iraq or Afghanistan.

It took a months for us to take Iraq or Afghanistan.

Yep they are also much more capable than the Russians. Remind me, how many days does the three days to Kyiv war now last? Also the Afghanistan beat the fucking Russians, to there is that.

That’s naive to think the Iraqi army is more capable than the Russian army.

is it though?

Yes. The two are not comparable. Russia has a lot more equipment and people than Iraq. They also have nuclear weapons and a large chemical arsenal. Also the size of Russia is immense. Just getting to Moscow would take weeks and securing all of Russia months.

hopefully we will never see that but I highly doubt that Russia has a chance against the full force of the NATO.

I’ve always been shocked the people haven’t kicked out Putin at this point. Invading Ukraine wasn’t a popular decision and it hasn’t went well.

Because they have no problem with him, at least the majority.

Putin is just a symptom not the cause, this country has degenerated beyond any saving in my opinion and it is that way since decades.

Truth is that Russia had more time to prepare and the USSR stockpile to fall back on. They also do heavily rely on unguided shell artillery because of the Soviet heritage, as does Ukraine, which makes it the weapon of choice. So Russia can outpace the West in this one item, dumb artillery shells, for a year.

Europe and the US are ramping up production, and are scheduled to outpace Russia by the end of the year. The truth is, the West was not preparing to fight this war, it was preparing to fight a war where it has overwhelming air superiority, but air capabilities take a ton of time to build with training pilots and whatnot.

Point is, Russia has this year to push this edge as much as possible, if nothing else changes, 2025 will be heavily stacked against them. That said, shit can happen, like with the US election, but on their side as well - remember Prigozhin?

Europe and the US are ramping up production, and are scheduled to outpace Russia by the end of the year

Where did you see that at? America won’t even get close for several years.

This guy has sources and seems competent and well-regarded. He also is not a click-grabbing clickbaity rah-rah Ukraine person.

TL;DW seems to be (correct me if I'm reading it wrong here):

  • Russia has a higher production number on their main calibre dumb artillery shells than the West since they had factories where they just had to ramp up production by extending shifts in their existing plants
  • The West was not prepared for this kind of war, so they don't manufacture main calibre dumb artillery shells at this rate, as their doctrine does not prescribe their use, they prefer air superiority tactics
  • However, both the EU and the US are ramping up main calibre shell production with each scheduled to be where Russia is at now in 18 months (if combined, they will surpass it in 12)
  • In the meantime the Czech have managed to get together a sizeable stop-gap shipment by buying from the open market using joint EU funds
  • Also, Russia has a serious problem with artillery, with the actual cannons, as their arsenal seems to be transforming from a mostly mobile self-propelled one to one dominated by towed units, with alarmingly many WWII D-10 guns, which have an effective range of 10km with very bad accuracy
  • Finally, even though Russia is producing a lot of shells, they are using even more, with them saying they need 4 million per year to sustain what they are doing now, but only producing 1.5 million per year, with a 3 million shell stockpile

All that says that Russia has a head start on shell production and stockpiles, but it's getting used up, while the Ukrainians need to hold on, and if both the EU and the US come through, they will be in a shell advantage by this time next year, if either the US or the EU loses political will (khm Trump), they will still be okay by end of next year-ish. On the other side, victories like Avdiivka are not sustainable for Russia either, neither manpower nor production-wise, but they can get a lot of support from China, so that may tilt stuff their way. It's still all up in the air.

Well, I mean I'm not 100% sure, but I would bet that the USA has more ammunition than anyone else on the planet. We are just hoarding it.