Russia is continuing its steady progress to taking over all of Donbas

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/9/russian-troops-grind-towards-pokrovsk-take-second-ukrainian-town-in-a-week While the Western media continues to generate its fantasy Russian casualty figures a la Vietnam era body-counts, Russia continues to take towns and territory on its way to conquering all of Donbas, its key objective when it invaded Ukraine. At the moment, it is systematically surrounding the large city of Pokrovsk, pre-war population 400,000, from all sides, by taking all the towns intervening, from the East. It's taken a couple just this week, with substantial territory, moving forwards every single day. Now, the West seems to accept that Ukraine can't actually take any of this territory back, it's too well fortified, and the Ukrainians simply haven't the manpower to do it, their military has been totally decimated. So, rather than talking about Ukrainian "counter-attacks" to retake territory, now the Western media is simply sticking to its script of claiming "overwhelming" casualties on the part of the Russians. Now, even the BBC has acknowledged, that its best efforts at research can only actually verify about 70,000 Russian dead in the entire war, about a tenth of the regular claims for Russian "losses". They comfort themselves by saying the "actual figure" is "believed to be higher". Well, maybe, but, probably not much higher. Now, that's just dead, of course, and, there are wounded as well, but, in most wars, the maimed and the dead turn up at about equal numbers, so, that really only means about 140,000 permanently out of action, or, about 1/10 of 1% of Russia's total population in three years of war, hardly an insurmountable figure from a practical point of view. When the Russians do take Pokrovsk -- which even the Ukrainians are acknowledging is inevitable by this stage -- that's pretty much it, for Donbas, Russia will effectively control it 100%. So, what happens then? True, the Russians have only taken about 20% of Ukraine so far, but, it's probably the best 20% of Ukraine! When they've finished taking Donbas, probably within a few months now, I suppose they could just keep going -- take Kharkiv, take Odessa, retake Kherson, eventually move on to Kiev. At what point will the West give up? Ever? Will the West want to keep fighting the Russians for decades, as they systematically colonize the rest of Ukraine? I doubt it actually. The war may be over next year, as Zelensky's support collapses. One can only hope so!

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-physicists-lie-all-the-time

Russia has remarkably quickly taken full control of the high ground, and the very important strategic fortress town of Vuhledar

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-secures-biggest-victory-since-164038972.html This is being described as the most important victory for Russia in six months of warfare. Although not a huge city, this town of some 15 thousand people was very heavily fortified, and is situated to control supply lines to much of what remains of Donbas, out of Russian control. Russia now controls more than 80% of Donbas, and, the way things are going, there doesn't seem to be much question that they will control all of it, by the end of the winter, if not earlier. Now, I know what many of you are thinking. "It was supposed to just be a 3-day operation, here it is, coming up on three years later, and they're still fighting. Doesn't this prove just how incompetent the Russians are, they can't even defeat the Ukrainians." Well, first of all, it's not just the Ukrainians. It's the Ukrainians plus limitless NATO assistance. The total amount of aid -- economic and military -- given to Ukraine so far from all NATO nations, is comparable to perhaps half the entire U.S. military budget, by far the largest in the world. Absent this aid, the war would certainly have been over, with a smashing Russian victory, within a month or two. Also, Ukraine is, actually, the second largest nation in Europe in terms of land area, after Russia, with a pre-war population of nearly 50 million people. So, between the massive NATO aid, and the size of the country, it's hardly surprising that Russia is having to work at this a bit. Now, many are claiming that Russia has proven that NATO is vastly superior to Russia in terms of military skill. After all, America defeated Iraq quite easily. Twice! Well, let's take a look at that. First of all, the population of Iraq in 1991 was 20 million people, in 2003, it was 27 million people. About half the population of Ukraine. And, about half the land area. Also, and perhaps more critically, Iraq was not getting 400 billion dollars in outside assistance, they were managing on their own. Finally, and perhaps most critically, America went in very big, from the start, they had nearly a million men in the initial assaults. In contrast, the Russians went in with just a couple of hundred thousand troops. They weren't expecting massive NATO assistance, and, that was the difference. If the Russians had went in with a million men, from the start, it would all have been over in days, probably, certainly weeks. What Russia is doing now, is colonizing Ukraine, one town at a time, and, it looks like Russia has achieved its primary objective, the reassimilation of Donbas into Russia. And, whoever wins the U.S. election, there's nothing whatsoever that can possibly be done to reverse that!