Dear mhaze,

Thank You.

AC,

So no mention of Crimea wanting to become 'autonomous'. Good idea. When shown to be so comprehensively wrong, it's best to drop the subject although a better man might have owned up to the error - even one as monumental as this.... to summarise AC thought he'd found proof of something that proved the USA instigated the Euromaidan revolt but completely misunderstood the survey he'd found which when properly understood, proved the exact opposite of his claim.

It is rather sad. AC was so cock-a-hoop when he found this survey ("I'll make fool of your arguments with actual documents. Try to worm your way out of this one [mhaze]... ) but has instead shot himself in both feet.

Oh well I did advise him to stop digging himself further into the hole he'd created and at least he's taken that advice.

But then, without missing a beat, he starts digging a new hole....

He wrote: "As in IRI’s March poll, more than half of respondents (55 percent) consider military intervention by Moscow to be an invasion and occupation of independent Ukraine."

Only 55% ?
- So the other 45% polled were fine with it.
(Must've been a lot of Russian speaking people in Ukraine unhappy with the coup.)"

Well unfortunately, as is his want, AC didn't bother to find out what the poll actual said. He found a snippet that he liked and ran with it. The poll found that 55% thought it was an invasion. But that doesn't mean the rest were OK with it. A further 17% thought it was a threat to the Ukrainian leadership and 4% thought it was about protecting Russian military assets in Sevastopol. Only 18% thought it was about protecting Russian speaking Ukrainians. I'll repeat that ....18%.

The errors mount - Lavrov, Crimea, polling. And that's just the errors that are provably wrong.

Hilariously AC writes: "If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't be disagreeing [with me]".

The fact is AC, if I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

"The errors mount - Lavrov, Crimea, polling. And that's just the errors that are provably wrong."

I'm not wrong, and you ain't proved squat.
I told you clean your ears out -
I knew of the issue of the Russian language being restricted back in 2014, long before Lavrov said it.

Go back to this question:
Can you answer this one simple question for us all
This is just a really easy YES or NO question, it's not difficult

Please tell us YES or NO, after the Maidan in 2013/2014
Did the new government in Kiev pass laws to restrict the Russian language IN ANY WAY?
Say it nice and loud in capitals so everyone can hear the truth.
- You can't say no, because you know you'd be wrong.

The polling shows lots of thing, firstly that the US considered Crime an autonomous region under Yanukovych in 2013, and also that even under Yanukovych the citizens of Crimea did not wish to be a part of Ukraine.

You think you have something...
But you've got nothing

And none of this matters.
In 5 to 6 weeks at the end of August, Ukraine is going to run out of the 155mm shells sent for the counteroffensive, and there isn't much in the way of stockpiles of manufacturing capacity for which to replace them, cluster munitions were a way to stretch out what little they have left.

Ukraine can't win the war.
They can't take territory when on the offensive, and they can't hold territory when on the defensive, and that's before we talk about the fact Russia is superior in number of troops and equipment, artillery, air force and air cover, air defense systems, manufacturing capacity, quality and quantity of drones, jamming capabilities, missile systems etc.

How is Ukraine going to win?
- Throw rocks at them?

Hi AC,

How is Russia going to replace all the electronic warfare equipment it is losing? Popov was concerned about the loss of counterbattery radar units, and losses of other specialised equipment like anti-aircraft missile systems seem unsustainable as well. And what's become of the 100k troops and 900 tanks in the north? Those mine fields, atgms and artillery aren't an obstacle for the Russians too are they?

I would guess that Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to protect its army over such a large front line. I hope that the Ukrainians remain patient and keep picking them off.

"I would guess that Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to protect its army over such a large front line. I hope that the Ukrainians remain patient and keep picking them off."

Ukraine will run out of everything and it's military will collapse long before Russias does, this is based on experts opinions who studymilitary capabilities including surge / manufacturing capacity, and Western stockpiles

- This is the inevitable conclusion based on those facts.

Some Russians however believe that Russia should stop playing around a go much harder to crush the Ukrainians once and for all, others such as Putin wish to limit the number of losses and not risk a direct confrontation with NATO.

It's not that Russia can't also fight a poorly trained and equipped NATO with limited stockpiles of equipment and munitions, though it would be a significant escalation, it's more about the direct confrontation of 2 nuclear armed military powers and what that would likely lead to.

If nukes are launched... no-one wins.

"I would guess that Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to protect its army over such a large front line."

I don't see any loss of territory on the Russian front line that would indicate this, all I see is 47 days of consistently failed Ukrainian offensives that failed to hold any territorial gains and that ultimately resulted in heavy losses of their own poorly trained conscripts in their largely diminished battalions.