"You might think that you have a greater understanding of truth, but I think that we are all in the peanut gallery."
- All I've ever done is try to share a different point of view than the one everyone gets from the corporate media.

"Bakhmut has been completely demolished, which is why the Ukrainian forces left. How long do you think it will be before the Russians are forced to retreat from it?"
- Ukrainians didn't choose to leave as you've implied, they fought to keep it at any cost. The chances of Ukraine taking it back are no better than their ability to keep it in the first place.

"The Russian army has less accurate weapons and is renowned for targeting civilians."
- 'Renowned for targeting civilians'... You selling the same bs narrative that was sold to you.
"Remember all the Bucha residents that were murdered?"
- Yes I do. It was Ukrainian forces going door to door shooting people suspected of being Russian collaborators. It's just another lie you were sold.
"Many ham radio operators heard the Russian commanders issuing orders to kill civilians."
- Many (emphasis) 'Ukrainian' ham radio operators...
I also remember showing you all a video with witness testimony that it was Ukrainians that blew up the Mariupol Drama Theatre full of women kids and elderly, to blame on Russia, but you think the Ukrainian ham radio operators would never tell a lie.
I don't know what else to tell you...
- Maybe we should revisit 'believe' again?

"Over the coming months it should become clear what is happening. No amount of propaganda can hide a defeat."
- True.

"If the Ukrainians can effectively cut supplies to Russian troops at the front their task will be much easier. I suspect that this is what they are trying to do."
- 'If'. Right now even with the collective wests help they can't even put together a force capable of conducting a successful counteroffensive with any real hope of success.
Russia keeps blowing everything up before they even get a chance to put it to use.

The west will want an off ramp where they don't lose face, when it becomes completely clear they can't win, but we're not quite there yet.
Things might become further complicated if and when F16s start being shot down.
Some say the west will quietly offer Russia a peace deal, i.e push for an armistice similar to what happened at the end of the Korean war, but Russia is not likely to accept this (effectively a Minsk 3)
Firstly they have no reason to trust the West after they (The collective West) negotiated Minsk 2 in bad faith and had no intention of honouring it, merely buying time to strengthen Ukraines position militarily, and secondly it will put Putin's government in direct conflict with Russian nationalists who already think he's been too soft, and the West would again certainly be trying to buy time once again to rearm and regroup to continue the war at a later date.

Likely Russia will keep pushing at least until they take everything west of the Dnieper, surround Kiev and force Ukraine to accept a deal on Russia's terms. 'Denazify and Demilitarise.'
Right now Russia is happy for Zelensky to remain in place, (He's making foolish choices against the advice of his own military advisors and he's very much a Hillary Clinton type figure, in that the more he stands on a podium making demands and pontificating the more western leaders and citizens come to loathe him);
- But ultimately the entire Ukrainian government will have to go, and a new Ukrainian government will have to pledge not to join NATO and remain neutral, and Russia will push for a new European security agreement that respects Russias security interests.
As for Odessa, who's to say what Russian plans are there, whether they intend on taking that as well.
At the same time I think if Russian forces push into western Ukraine, then Poland may well also send their military into Ukraine to take a chunk of western Ukraine as well.

"Pay more attention to your own country and the trash ruining it."

Which trash are you referring to exactly?
- The trash running it or the trash that voted for them?
Maybe our country has gotten the exact leadership it deserved to have?
Clueless gullible idiots fed too much crap in schools and aren't ever given the full story by other idiots on tv and radio.

I can't change the way Australians think about certain issues.
You grievance shouldn't be with me, but the people who set curriculum taught to kids in school, career university academics who mould the minds of young adults but fail to teach or allow them to think for themselves and a complicit corporate media who do much the same to the rest of us, failing to ever inform the general public with the full story on any issue, but instead aim to mislead, misinform or persuade people to think a certain way about that particular issue, whatever that issue may be.

Maybe the problem itself is democracy or the current version of it.
Our nation became captured and is a vassal state of the collective west ruled by the US, and where we are more concerned about 'international democracy' and the rights of refugees for example as opposed to 'national democracy' where upon we can't even be allowed to discuss or decide whats in our own interests on our own lest someone might cry 'racist'.

Our leaders were quick to become authoritarians during the pandemic, and remember democracy only exists for issues that don't matter, for the purpose of making us think we have a choice, when all the decisions that matter have been decided by foreigners by treaty whether that be UN or others, and on that issue, we find that both sides of politics are usually bipartisan and in agreement and the people have no choice at all anyway.
- The political parties themselves being two wings of the same bird.

That said why would I want to pay more attention to what's going on in this country?
- It would just get more more upset and feeling more disillusioned at the state of things when I can't do anything to change it anyway.

Look at the twits we get to choose from - Dutton and Albo, and you're all convinced democracy is serving us well.
It may very well instead be a race to the bottom?

And maybe that in itself is the reason why Australians got the exact government they deserved.
They think democracy is working well when maybe it actually isn't working so well at all.
But it wasn't their fault, the system was rigged and the cards were stacked against them.

In an earlier comment I wrote 'take everything west of the Dnieper'
- I made a mistake there, meant to say everything east.

"Russia keeps blowing everything up before they even get a chance to put it to use."

If you are referring to Russian tanks I agree with you AC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_uBkaurCLo

The best thing about our polarised views AC is that if either of our opinions is accurate the war will end sooner rather than later. That is surely a good thing.