mike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:52 pmAccording to this war map[/url], the Russians are still largely holding territories that they occupied in February of last year.
Well, not exactly. All of the blue zones in this map were occupied by Russia during the first weeks of the war and have since been reclaimed by Ukraine. According to the NYT from where this map was obtained, Ukraine has reclaimed 54% of the land that was first seized by Russia at the start of the war. Which is hardly nothing.
Not a lot has changed on the map since Ukraine reclaimed Kherson last fall which is the blue blob on the bottom of the map. In Recent months it has been Russia that has been on the offensive with very little to show for it other than tens of thousands of deaths and the wreckage of immense amounts of weapons and material.
Will this war end in a stalemate (like the Korean war) along armistice lines that look more or less like the front lines as they exist today? I don't have the slightest idea and neither does anyone else I suspect. I don't think either side is currently fighting to end this in a stalemate. So it doesn't seem likely that we will see one any time soon.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
mike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:52 pmAccording to this war map[/url], the Russians are still largely holding territories that they occupied in February of last year.
Well, not exactly. All of the blue zones in this map were occupied by Russia during the first weeks of the war and have since been reclaimed by Ukraine. According to the NYT from where this map was obtained, Ukraine has reclaimed 54% of the land that was first seized by Russia at the start of the war. Which is hardly nothing.
Right, which is why I said since February, not since the beginning of the war. I was going by dates on the one map.
mike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:52 pmAccording to this war map[/url], the Russians are still largely holding territories that they occupied in February of last year.
Well, not exactly. All of the blue zones in this map were occupied by Russia during the first weeks of the war and have since been reclaimed by Ukraine. According to the NYT from where this map was obtained, Ukraine has reclaimed 54% of the land that was first seized by Russia at the start of the war. Which is hardly nothing.
Right, which is why I said since February, not since the beginning of the war. I was going by dates on the one map.
I'm not sure what you mean. The only Ukrainian territory that Russia actually occupied prior to Feb 2022 was Crimea.
There were parts of the Donbass that were in conflict prior to Feb 2022 but Russia swore up and down that it was not RUSSIA that was occupying those parts of the Donbass prior to Feb 2022, it was completely independent Ukrainian "separatists". In fact, Russia denied even having troops in the Donbass prior to Feb 2022 much less an occupying army.
In any event the map you posted is wrong. Or at least deceptive. It only shows land CURRENTLY occupied by Russia but none of the lands that have changed hands between the start of the invasion and the present day.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Well, not exactly. All of the blue zones in this map were occupied by Russia during the first weeks of the war and have since been reclaimed by Ukraine. According to the NYT from where this map was obtained, Ukraine has reclaimed 54% of the land that was first seized by Russia at the start of the war. Which is hardly nothing.
Right, which is why I said since February, not since the beginning of the war. I was going by dates on the one map.
I'm not sure what you mean. The only Ukrainian territory that Russia actually occupied prior to Feb 2022 was Crimea.
There were parts of the Donbass that were in conflict prior to Feb 2022 but Russia swore up and down that it was not RUSSIA that was occupying those parts of the Donbass prior to Feb 2022, it was completely independent Ukrainian "separatists". In fact, Russia denied even having troops in the Donbass prior to Feb 2022 much less an occupying army.
In any event the map you posted is wrong. Or at least deceptive. It only shows land CURRENTLY occupied by Russia but none of the lands that have changed hands between the start of the invasion and the present day.
Not a big deal, and the map may be wrong of course. The date is oddly formatted, but I took it to mean "Occupied Territory since 24/02/22 [February 24, 2022]" because of the way the map formatted today's date (22/03/22). Maybe they're just not counting those early gains as occupied territory because they weren't held that long.
mike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:52 pm
Apparently, over a year into the war now, next to nothing has changed from the early invasion in terms of who controls what territory. Is this thing a stalemate? Will the Ukrainians ever gain the ability to retake these territories? It sure seems that if Russia had the ability to take the whole, or at least a much larger piece, of the Ukraine, they would have by now. Or don't they actually want to do that? Is their intent to just keep what they have?
I don't know much about war or how these things are calculated. It clearly has been a stalemate in recent months, after Ukraine regained a lot of territory that Russia had taken.
If you want to read about the kinds of calculations each side may be making, this site seems pretty helpful:
DNYUZ wrote:While fighting has raged for Bakhmut in the east, since being driven out of Kherson, Russian units in the south have been building defensive positions, which could present challenges for any potential Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukrainian officials have warned against making predictions about their military moves, cautioning that only a handful of people know when or where any counteroffensive would take place.
In recent days, however, classified war documents detailing American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military before a planned counteroffensive have been leaked online.
