I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about how, after four years of war with Russia, Ukraine is turning the tide.
In 2022, at the beginning of Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukraine was fighting for its survival. Western weapons allowed it to stymie the Russian advance, at which point the war bogged down into WW1-style trench warfare. Russia willingly sacrificed enormous numbers of soldiers for minimal territorial gains, but Ukraine was unable to recapture most of the territory they’d lost.
This was the status quo for years. But in the last few months, even without American aid, Ukraine has been slowly gaining the initiative. Rapid innovation in drone technology has allowed them to overcome Russia’s air defenses, leading to a steady tempo of strikes on oil refineries and other strategic targets, as well as the embarrassing spectacle of Ukrainian drones attacking Moscow. How long can Russia sustain this punishment before their economy collapses?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like a subscriber newsletter:
At the beginning of the invasion, Vladimir Putin believed he’d conquer Ukraine in just three days. Russian soldiers were so confident of meeting no resistance, they packed their dress uniforms for a triumphal march through the streets of Kyiv.
It wasn’t just Russians who held this opinion. Many American conservatives counseled Ukraine to surrender because they argued that Russia was invincible, Ukraine had no hope of victory, and the sooner they capitulated, the easier it would go for them.
In May 2026, four years later, Russian refineries are going up in flames and Ukrainian attack drones are buzzing over Moscow.
How the tables have turned.
“Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like a subscriber newsletter:”
The only way to read it is to click to OnlySky.
Ah well. I’d read it were it here, but I am not clicking on clickbait.
@ Morales
There’s no reason to announce what you are not reading. Nobody cares.
(For the benefit of non-trolls, when you click through there’s a handy audio player so you can have the article read to you. This is very convenient for when you want listen while doiing other things.)
You cared. Obviously.
(A self-defeating barb!)
Also, I read a lot faster than I can listen (even sped up), and also I can’t pay proper attention while doing other things.
(Is it nothing more than background noise for ya?)
@Morales and @Silentbob
The first line of Lee’s piece tells you that you would be wasting your time to read on. It’s basically a work of fiction by Lee, who poses as a journalist, but doesn’t know the first thing about journalism, and nor does he care about truth. That being the case, he tells a story as he would like it to be, and in accordance with the narrative that the corporate media put out, which anyone with a titter of wit knows is propaganda. At this stage, there is simply no excuse for this level of incuriousness.
Lee says: “In February 2022, Russia launched an all-out, unprovoked war on its democratic neighbor Ukraine.”
This is just prima facie false. Not even the New York Times maintains the fiction that Russia’s move on Ukraine was “unprovoked” and to call Ukraine a democracy now is beyond a joke.
Lee has been told this before, but he hasn’t sought to correct himself. As such, he is worse than useless. He is being actively, knowingly dishonest.
This is also why Lee doesn’t even dare to try to defend his assertions. He knows he can’t.
So to save you the time, the TL/DR is: No, Ukraine is not “winning”. It is demonstrably not “winning”. It is the opposite of “winning”. You’re welcome.
Weren’t you the guy who was super mad at me for not condemning Israel harshly enough? But you’re also a bootlicker for Putin and a genocide apologist who preaches Russia’s right to bomb Ukraine’s cities, massacre its civilians and kidnap its children? You must be badly confused.
Are you perhaps not smart enough to see that your two pet issues contradict each other? Are you just gullible, lapping up Russian propaganda while congratulating yourself for being a critical thinker? Or are you one of those faux-leftists who mistakes smugness and contrarianism for actual principles?
(I discount the obvious fourth possibility – that you’re one of Putin’s paid propagandists yourself – because I’m pretty sure the Russian troll farms only hire people who can be at least superficially appealing. They wouldn’t want a representative whose personality was as aggressively unpleasant as yours.)
That was rather personal and malicious, Adam.
There is no warrant to it; your teaser is perfectly correct and a good intro.
The momentum is shifting, the original huge disparity is becoming less relevant, and Russia’s economy is not being buttressed by others.
Here is Perun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DTLE0fwiIg
@John Morales: Since you don’t click on clickbait (/s), you wouldn’t know that this person is an obnoxious troll from OnlySky.
Although I’ve been very clear that I condemn Israel’s warmongering, he was upset that I didn’t do so in the precise terms he demanded, so he spent days lashing out at me with obscene vituperation. Here’s an example of his sparkling wit:
He also unleashed similar venom against other commenters, other OnlySky writers, and OnlySky’s publisher, for having the poor judgment to hire people like me. He’s a walking example of that old saw about how if you think everyone you meet smells like shit, you should check your own shoes.
Since he evidently didn’t obtain the satisfaction he was seeking, it seems he’s trying again here, on my personal blog. At this point, I’m not inclined to be charitable.
Respect.
Ah, Adam. I see you’re deigning to engage here, rather than nuking comments in real time and then banning. Not very fair of you to imply the comment you quoted was representative of anything I said previously. Anyway, you’ve provided plenty of grist to my mill here. I’ll get back to you presently and pinky promise to keep it civil. Looking forward, L.
“and a genocide apologist ”
That’s interesting, can you name one authority or expert in the world who has declared that Russia/Putin has committed genocide in Ukraine (or even that a plausible case can be made for it)?
On the other hand you haven’t once acknowledged that Israel has (and still is) committing genocide in Gaza, indeed you’ve merely said it was an “overreaction” to an “act of war” (October 7th) from Hamas.
(Indeed in this very comment section you merely condemned Israel for “warmongering” – when what they have – and are doing – goes far beyond that.)
You are firmly in the camp of “liberal Zionists” like your mate old Bernie Sanders – who just like you still hasn’t acknowledged that his beloved Israel is committing genocide.
But you have the gaul to declare that poor Ukraine and all those brave patriots ( no “terrorists”, or “extremists” over there apparently – or indeed no money launderers, and people robbing millions of the western aid money!), has been genocided by “Evil Putin”.
The brass neck on you.
The government of Estonia.
The government of Latvia.
The government of Lithuania.
The government of Poland.
The government of Spain.
The government of Colombia.
The government of Canada.
The government of Ireland.
The International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School.
The NGO, Genocide Watch.
You’re either badly uninformed or a liar. Me, in April 2024:
Ah yes, that’s the article where you described October 7th as an “act of war”, and said Israel had the right to defend itself (” no nation would have blamed Israel for responding in kind.” you wrote.)
And where you quoted Bernie saying Israel was great 20 or 30 years ago, it’s just Netanyahu and a few right wing nutters that’s spoiled it.
What right do occupiers have to “defend themselves” in international law btw? Does Russia have this “right” in Ukraine?
And if Israel killed the Hamas savages “in a targeted and proportional way”, then implemented some Trump style “humane” plan of fucking the people of gaza off to other countries, (and any one who doesn’t want to leave, is of course free to starve to death) you’d be okay with that? “Targeted and proportional” self defense of the occupier right?
(Note – the above is actually the view of “left wing” Isrealis – the nice ones Bernie was talking about, who made the place great in the past).
As for Genocide in Ukraine, Russia has been dealing with areas that are heavily militarized – often with at least comparable weapons to themselves, and where they don’t control all the borders, all of the skies (no air defences in Gaza), and where they don’t control all the water, food, fuel, and medical supplies that comes in and out.
And when they have taken control of an area, they haven’t flattened it, bombed it to Kingdom come, and expelled the surviving Ukrainians – and replaced them with Russians.
Which is probably why most scholars don’t think it’s genocide.
Yes. It was.
Regardless of your opinion on the legitimacy of Israel or the justice of the Palestinian cause – if you think any country, ever, in the history of the world, would respond to an indiscriminate atrocity such as the October 7 attacks by shrugging its shoulders and say, “Oh well, I guess we deserved that,” then your politics have caused you to be completely detached from human nature and reality.
Is it really hard for you to understand why I, a left-wing atheist with Jewish heritage, am not a fan of Hamas any more than I am of the violent ethno-religious supremacists that are in charge in Israel?
In context, it’s quite clear that he was saying 20 or 30 years ago, there was an Israeli left that was potentially willing to make a peace deal. There no longer is.
Yes they have.
Yep, definitely a dodyful pro-Russian troll doing his doody.
One should not underestimate people’s ability to believe totally irrational things.
Consider this: after Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four big moons with his telescope, a certain Francesco Sizzi responded in “Dianoia Astronomica” that those moons cannot exist. That was because the seven traditional planets correspond to the seven openings in our heads: two luminaries (Sun and Moon), two favorable ones (Venus and Jupiter), two unfavorable ones (Mars and Saturn), and Mercury, and two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth. That is alongside the seven days of the week, the seven metals (gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead, quicksilver), …
That was such a bizarre argument that I tracked down that book and discovered no translation from the original Latin. I thus had to translate parts of it myself, and I discovered that that argument was in the original.
This kind of argument makes some sense if one believes in astrology, I must concede, but not otherwise.
Adam Lee
“Regardless of your opinion on the legitimacy of Israel or the justice of the Palestinian cause – if you think any country, ever, in the history of the world, would respond to an indiscriminate atrocity such as the October 7 attacks by shrugging its shoulders and say, “Oh well, I guess we deserved that,” then your politics have caused you to be completely detached from human nature and reality.”
In Operation Cast Lead Israel violated the cease fire and killed over a thousand Palestinians in Gaza (roughly the same number killed on October 7th), and destroyed over 46,000 thousand homes.
It would have been “a targeted and proportional” response from Hamas to take out the Israeli political and military elite, dismantle the IDF, “destroy the zionist entity and it’s ideology” (“the Jewish state”), impose a brutal economic blockage on the country, and turn it in the world’s biggest concentration camp?!
Or would that be evil, and anti Semitic Mr ‘Post Zionist’?
Yet that is exactly what passes as ‘humane’, ‘moderate’ and ‘left wing’ in Israeli and ‘Post’/liberal zionist circles!
“In context, it’s quite clear that he was saying 20 or 30 years ago, there was an Israeli left that was potentially willing to make a peace deal.”
Bernie voted to back Israel when they attacked Gaza in operation cast lead, and voted to condemn the UN report which condemned Israel and charged war crimes. He also backed Israel again in the 2014 Gaza War – when they killed over twice the number that was killed on October 7th.
So yeah fuck Bernie, and Israeli so called ‘moderates’.
“Yes they have.”
You are seriously comparing these events and killings to the genocide in Gaza? Isreali “grass trimming” – backed for years by left wing ‘moderate’ zionists like your mate Bernie – years before October 7th even happened, was more brutal, more extensive and more damaging than these (even using the upper bound estimates, and figures from the Ukrainian government in the Wikipedia articles you linked).
And according to the UN in 4 years they have documented 1,205 children who have been forcible deported to Russia.
Hardly “replacement” levels – and absolutely nothing comparable to Gaza, where around 20 times that number of children have become pieces of charcoal.
Now who’s splitting hairs?
First, you accused me of never using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza. When I showed evidence that I have, you didn’t have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that or admit you were wrong about it; you just dropped the point and moved on to a different argument. That speaks of someone who came up with his opinion first and is now casting about for reasons to justify it.
Second, you said that Russia wasn’t forcibly relocating people from Ukraine. When I showed evidence that they’ve done exactly that (and Ukraine says there are records of at least 20,000 abducted children, not 1200), you once again didn’t admit you were mistaken, and instead scoffed that this was “hardly ‘replacement’ levels”.
Just imagine the rage you’d be spewing against me if I argued that Israel hadn’t killed enough people in Gaza for it to “really” count as genocide. You’re doing that exact thing right now.
I’ll have a conversation with anyone who’s willing to approach the discussion in good faith. I don’t believe you’re that person.